2016:
This was the first yaoi manga I ever owned and I'm holding onto it for sentimental reasons.
2021:
This was the type of trash I liked as a young adult, huh? My tastes have changed, in the sense that I have become a lot more sensitive towards the way rape is almost glamorized in many yaoi manga - like homosexual rape isn't traumatic because it's between men so it doesn't count, or something.
Another topic I've become more sensitive towards is the age difference between the protagonists, PLUS! the fact that one of them is underage. I'm not sure exactly how old Joe is, but he seems in his mid-twenties, while Yuushi is still in middle school the first time they have sex. I understand why 18-year-old me could gloss over this age difference because I was basically still a kid, but as a 30-year-old, this makes me uNcOmFoRtAbLe.
Other than that, it's a funny comic. Like, the one-two-punchline comedic timing is really good.
And I kinda like that Joe is a bi person with a gender preference - often in media, bi people are written as 50-50, and Japanese media often forget that bisexuality even exists at all, so it's cool to have some representation. Shame he had to be a child predator! /facepalm.
It's also weird that he never calls himself bi but keeps making jokes about being perceived as a homo? This manga is pretty old, so maybe it has to do with the times and/or the translation.
Another thing I liked was that we follow the relationship between the protagonists over a period of several years. They seem pretty happy together, considering everything they went through.
So yeah, in conclusion: it's pretty funny, but I don't much care for the child rape. So I'm yeeting this from my personal library.