Took me a while to figure out that you need to scroll down to write the comment.
Boku to Issho, I finished the manga 2 days ago and i want to write my lingering emotions to this. But before I write about how I at least laugh so hard (quietly) that I thought I would scream and wake up the sleeping neighbors (i had an all nighter and finished the manga at 6 in themorning) and how i was brought to a few manly tears by this manga I want to first start from the very beginning.
When I look for mangas to read I always have one rule "no mainstream allowed/ no currently famous works allowed" regardless of the positive reviews they have and your friends keep telling you "You Should READ/WATCH THIS MANGA/ANIME it's soooo GOOD". Good thing i dont have that many friends and i dont listen to them either.
So I pretty much dont read/watch anything famous or whatnot. So what manga do I read? At first i'd do research and read the Highly Acclaimed Mangas of all time. Berserk, Vagabond, Slamdunk. Vinland Saga, Gintama, Battle Angel Alita, Ashita no Joe, Devilman, innocent, I am a Hero, Abara , Akira, Domu, 20th Century Boys, Monster, Ping-pong, Tekkonkinkreet, Dorohedoro, Freesia, Fire Punch, Homunculus, Oyasumi Punpun, Sanctuary, Sunny, anything tezuka, rumiko takahashi and many you name it! I probably read almost all of them !
I was just joking, i still even havent read a single jinjo ito.
Even if i did read a lot i still have a "lotter" famous and must read manga that i havent read. Maybe it was because at some point i didnt really know why i was doing it in the first place, sure i read them and i had fun on some but for the most of them they didnt really leave anything to me at all, i was just reading because of their fame.
So recently (since the later half of the pandemic started) the way how searched for something to read was to look up a famous manga in a reading website then look at the recommendations below and find if the covers strike anything to me. I dont even read the synopsis I just look at the cover and if i find it good BHAM i add it to my library ( i use tachiyomi to read manga), download first 5 and forget about them for the next 3 months. And this is basically what happens to most of my manga including Boku to Issho.
When i first saw the cover of Boku to Issho i was still figuring out what they were doing and how they ended up at that position (look at the first volume cover and youll know what i mean). But because I already downloaded it had no choice but to read it. On the first few chapters it was really the art that felt weird for me. I knew there was this kind of sub genre of manga in the 80's and 90's (I read that from the book Manga!Manga!Manga! by Frederik Schodt, read it if you dont mind using your time for something worthwhile) but it was my first time reading one that i sincerely considered as funny and not something that is old, underground and hip. The jokes were over the over the top and it was my first encounter on that kind of gag without dismissing it as something lower than harem rubbish. It was interesting and funny, but i still havent finished the first five chapters and I already stopped. I didnt think it was stupid or anything, i just have that habit that i paused a manga im currently reading bc something urgent came up (school, school shit, another school shit, or good porn) and i forget to go read it again.
So after a few months of wasting my youth, just like how i discovered Boku to Issho I stumble upon Minoru Furuya (the author) another work "Ping Pong Club". Even before reading the manga i was recently getting interested on playing pingpong, even if i had no equipment to play with this didn't stop my pingpong fever.
The pingpong related jokes in Pingpong Club hit harder than I expected that unknowingly this manga immediately became one of my favourites (pls somebody translate the remaining volumes🙁( i dont want to learn japanese!!! ik it would be cool but im tooo lazyyy). 10 Chapters in I started to see striking similarities from a previous manga i never finished. The super funny and stupid duo, the perversion, the jokes, the art, the mild nudity and it was when i read the name of the mangaka that i realized they were made by the same person (i hope i'll meet this amazing guy in the future).
So I decided to read Boku to Issho again. And boy I loved it. From the initial hook to the over the top and silly humor on things that on normal standard are sensitive issues and the just plain funny panels. I loved it. It was a long time since i laughed that hard while reading a manga. The story itself was something worth praise as well, something you wouldn't expect from manga a that heavily relies on comedy as it's selling point. The interpersonal relationships between the main and side characters was something i really liked as well. Maybe it's because I myself is in this weird phase of life where everything just starts to look and feel different. A time where you either choose to chase your dreams or forget about them. Just totally weird ... and sad. Maybe if a read this when i was little bit younger i'll just laughs at their mischiefs and sufferings and if i was a little bit older i'll immediately consider this as stupid and somethings "for kids". Im happy I read this when im still undergoing the tumultuous teenage years of my youth. This work really means a lot to me especially when I all i ever did recently is just fail at everything i try to do.
I feel like i haven't said enough but i written to much for this review. I hope my feelings crossed through these piles of texts.
BOKU TO ISSHO FOREVAA!!!
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