this is my favourite of hers, which is a bit of a pity, since it's her first, and i find it superior in every way to the later ones. the stories of the twins and their lovers are simple, and there isn't too much angst, just normal feelings of confusion any teenager feels. i wasn't entirely happy with akira's sudden decision; that felt rushed. i am also not annoyed by the cross dressing, since it's not used in the insipid way most BL uses it. though i would have appreciated some explanation as to why shizuka does it; it would have given more depth to him.

i also like the art here; it seems more imaginative, makes better use of panels, the eyes are not as heavy as in her later work, and the uke faces not as pinched. darn. i hope she finds her way back to this.

(no, there isn't any twincest,)

... Last updated on January 13th, 2011, 3:44pm

I thought it was a passive, albeit very sweet story. It reminds me a bit of Sukitte Iwasete? by Yamamoto Kotetsuko (or I should say it reversed since this one was published first). This one also has twins that have been friends with a third party boy since childhood, and since childhood one of the twins and the boy have both equally liked each other. One twin appears more upbeat and keen on smiling, while the other is a borderline tsundere. There are misunderstandings on which twin the third party boy likes, but eventually I'm sure you can guess what happens and the rest of the volume is split with the other twin's perspective and story. If you've read both works, you can definitely see by now what I mean by similarities.

Te Tsunagi Gokko, however, is a bit more of a bitter sweet story (not overtly, but just enough to get a feel of what the underlying tone is supposed to be). The twins are incredibly identical in a way that makes it hard to even begin to tell them apart when they're on the same page (especially when Miharu starts to be a lot less cheerful and his personality starts to reflect Chiharu's, making them basically look like carbon copies of each other). Because of this, you get a real sense of loneliness while they learn to let go of each other. It starts to feel more like a subtle story of growing up and learning to have their own identities outside of each other, instead of the romance it's trying hard to be. I suppose this is why their individual romances don't exactly come off as something all that passionate or complex to me. At times they almost felt like devices used for character development...which didn't bother me all that much because I did enjoy the overall development of the twins.

It's a pretty decent read either way. If you're not as serious as I am when reading, this'll do just fine.

... Last updated on March 4th, 2015, 3:30pm