Mayo Tsurukame (native: 鶴亀まよ) is a Japanese author of Boys' Love manga. Her debut work is Mikami to Sato wa mada yamashikunai 三上と里はまだやましくない (2018), that is getting a second volume in 2022. Other works include: Akari to kare wa nayamashii あかりと彼はなやましい (2019, 2021) and Perfect Propose パーフェクトプロポーズ (2020).
Step inside, we'll take a ride, Bonnie, Clyde, you and I / We can do this, do or die, why don't we just take a drive? (Electropop – Jupiter Rising).
Sabrina? I’ve got something I want to talk about. Now, if you need to know anything about me, it's that I’m one of those weirdos who’s pretentiously proud of being “offline” enough to where I'm blissfully unaware of niche drama like Katseye band disputes or which singer's wedding is causing crazy amounts of traffic. I mean, the fact that I can even reference all that hints that I'm secretly too online, but the second most important thing to know is that I’m also incredibly nosy and find it fun to watch YouTube videos chronicling random petty drama. "Petty" being the operative word here, because there's nothing I find more irritating than whenever a YouTuber makes a video about a serious topic and starts preaching like, "here's what we're not going to do" and all that. Relax Anderson Cooper, you're a YouTuber who watches the VMAs for potential video content, don't start trying to act like you're some kind of authority on literally anything. But yeah, I tell myself watching this stuff is helpful to “stay informed,” but the truth is that I just like being in everybody’s business. The content I’ve been enjoying the last few days are those commentary type videos talking about this new wave of people getting fired over being really stupid by posting TikToks telling on themselves during work hours. There's a dude who works at a pizza joint bringing in his own ribs to make on company equipment, and it’s like, was the content you so clearly crave really worth getting fired over? I wouldn't think so, but you'd be surprised how addicting getting attention is. Seriously, I could go on and on about people who’ve put up all of their business online and how it’s actively ruining their lives, but then I wouldn’t have time to speak to the other unrelated tangent I’d like to rant about! In that regard, apparently the tea is that gay men are acting a fool over (presumably) straight women having the strangle-hold on queer literature, specifically the “MM” genre. Gasp!
Firstly, the landscape puts forth that MM books are unfortunately more popular than sapphic lit, meaning that a lot of queer authors have no choice but to express themselves through the lens of queer men in fiction, so it's important to understand that there are many factors that could lead to an abundance of LGBT+ lit written by people who don’t outwardly look like queer men. You shouldn't be all like, “gay books are only for straight women” and write the whole thing off. Who are you to know what does and doesn’t relate to folks out there! "We are more alike, my friends, than unalike." right Maya Angelou? Besides, there are people who listen to Stella Lefty and claim this billionaire’s daughter “saved their lives with her music” or whatever, and we can’t say they're lying, now can we? We can make fun though, and we should, and I will. Look, I don’t really know the specifics of the drama because I’m not on TikTok so I'm going in poorly informed as usual, but all I know is that I don’t give a fuck about the identity of an author, as long as they make good art, they’re cool in my book. Sure, while I understand the frustration in feeling like you’re not able to tell your own truth... at the end of the day, people can write about whatever they want. Part of the allure of being an author is that you can see through any and all perspectives, and if they happen to connect to people, then that’s just an added bonus. On the flip-side, that also means we can be there waiting to criticize said art to our heart's content when it’s out in the world. Scarlett Johansson may argue that her ability as an actor means she's allowed to play an Asian woman, but that doesn't mean we're not allowed to roast the shit out of her for both being out of touch and incredibly limited in acting ability, of which peaked at Lost in Translation. Again, it's not our place to tell people what they can and can’t write, right? That’s why you never really see me on here debating about an author’s sexuality or gender identity because even though I’m nosy, what business is it of mine to comment? I know how to stay in my lane every now and then!
“If the whole world were made up of people like you… it’d be a better place.”
For me, the only thing that really matters at the end of the day is whether the book I'm reading resonates or not. Besides, women authors generally just write more attractive men, don’t they? Narsi from Master of Restless Shadows, my love! No but seriously though, the main reason I’m even here doing my own take on drama YouTubers in this review is because if we try to run women out of the MM genre for good, then the truth is that I would never get to read stuff like Dysfunctional Family Theory ever again. Huh, I guess all of that preamble was just selfish ramblings, who would have thought! Anyway, since I’ve hyped it enough, let’s get on with it, why don’t we? For those who weren’t here for the first volume, Dysfunctional Family's story revolves around Sentaro and Touma, two ex-boyfriends of a real “manic pixie dream girl” type… girl coming together after the aforementioned woman had passed and wrote in her will that one of our main duo is the bio daddy of her daughter, Meguru. Rather than taking a DNA test like a rational person, she decides to do a trial kind of thing where they’ll both raise Meguru for a couple months and then she can decide who’ll be her dad. Volume two is a bit of a mixture between Looking for Alaska and The Godfather in that it has a more noble depiction of the mob and also posits the question of who a person really was versus who people thought they were. The conflict comes from the inability to ask them straight up anymore since they're already gone. You can theorize all day, but they’re not even around to get mad at anymore, and there's a unique kind of hollow sadness in that. This installment begins after Sentaro's drunken knowledge drop that he had actually been in love with Touma all along (how sweet), and even though he’s cold and withdrawn towards him in this day and age, it’s always hard to let go of a feeling, right? The rest mostly follows Touma as goes about his days as some kind of enforcer for the gang like he’s in the 3rd Street Saints or whatever, and we get to experience his arc as he slowly realizes he truly does love his new family.
Look, this manga has a weird ass premise and just putting it in words sounds silly, but there's some nuance here, I promise. There's a strong emotional basis in that both men have their own hang-ups in coming to terms with the new realities of fatherhood, and they struggle with flaws that hold them back from being the right people to raise a kid. I mean, that’s not to say that all loser ass dudes are created equal, because if we’re being honest, Touma’s got a lot to work on. I know he’s in the mafia, but what was he thinking leaving the devil’s dandruff laying around where a six-year old could easily get a hold of it. Get with it, dude. I guess it's pretty realistic in the sense that it’s not really romanticizing the gang life, but rather focusing on the gayng life heh heh. Really though, with how wild Touma was acting, he’s lucky Sentaro took his ass back at all. Any person with self-respect would have cut this dude off at several points in the story! Well, my opinion doesn't matter, Sentaro wanted Touma’s Teddy Swimmers in his Gary Bussy, and that’s that. “Love will never do without you” and all that. What makes this manga so unique in the wake of all the incredibly sugary sweet gay love stories out there is that these characters are a mess. I know it’s in the title, "Dysfunctional" etc. etc., but I was still surprised that the author actually explored the premise to its full extent rather than succumbing to the pressures of prudes on TikTok who complain about any kind of conflict in a story. “I just want my favorite characters to be happy UwU!” couldn't be me, not I, I want conflict and strife! You know how people are always throwing around the tidbit of “cats eating their owner's body when they die” and trying to use it as an example of how they don’t really love us? Yeah well, I’ve always thought… so? Enjoy your meal, kitty! The cat is just doing what nature tells them, and they might be expressing love in the only way they can. That’s what Dysfunctional Family Theory is telling us; that maybe beautiful things can happen if we give people the benefit of the doubt. A full-course meal, for one.
Sounds gangster, I'm game sir, we'll play the town prankster / Using up the spar we play, then we make our getaway.
Eh. The whole manga was so mid, but cute at the same time!. Little megu was so so cute. I Didn't really care about the MC's relationship. But was cute too 🤷🏻
I mainly read it because of Megu and the art. And i loved them both
La verdad esperaba otra cosa pero me gustó igualmente. Siento que con otro volumen o quitando lo del Yakuza hubiera fluido mejor o hubieran podido desarrollar más a los personajes y su situación.
stop, touma and sentarou's relationship is so precious to me. and i love how they decided to live with meguru despite the low possibility of them being the fathers after they'd encountered shouji.
This genuinely just feels like Buddy-Daddies-but-make-it-BL, and I'm pretty okay with that.
I enjoyed this second volume a lot. While the romantic relationship felt a tiny bit rushed, at least from Touma's end, I appreciated how much space was given to their backstory. Sentaro's crush was so obvious that Touma had been aware of it - not interested in reciprocating, but not bothered by it, either. Plus there was an emotion he couldn't quite pinpoint back then, when Sentaro disappeared from not only his girlfriend's life but from Touma's, too.
Regret, probably. The slightest realization that he was actually interested in Sentaro (as a person and a musician, anyway) and had liked the attention and open affection, but without being sufficiently in touch with his own feelings to interpret why things felt off when Sentaro fled like that.
When they talk about their feelings in the present - with Touma bringing the topic up, not letting Sentaro get away with forgetting the drunken kiss and confession - he admits Sentaro had no chance back then. The reality was that Touma wasn't in any sort of relationship headspace - he wasn't really "dating" Ririko, although he knew enough about relationships to tell her she'd messed up by sleeping with multiple guys at once without actually telling then she wasn't exclusive.
Touma came from a yakuza background, with a father who'd gone to jail, gotten kicked out of the family, and killed himself once he was released - and a mother who'd been hooked on drugs and had gotten her own teenage son arrested by recommending him to a job he didn't know was run by shady people. (That reminded me of Great Pretender, too.) I don't know why Touma's siblings weren't included more - I guess he wasn't trying to take care of them...? But it's clear his parents' choices and criminal history meant he had to give up on his dreams, and lost any sense of what a normal family life was supposed to look like.
So of course he doesn't feel ready to be a dad. Especially since he's still connected to the yakuza, even if only on the outskirts. That whole plotline was a little messy and kind of unnecessary, still, but added some interesting elements to his character.
One lingering question...with Touma losing the yakuza connection and Sentaro having quit his job, how are they going to...survive? Pay for a child? It was a little weird that the whole plotline about Sentaro's composing got dropped.
Still, even if the plot was thin in spots, I really enjoyed the characters and their bond. I liked Touma's unexpected surges of jealousy over whether Sentaro had liked Ririko more than him. And I wonder if her final decision about her daughter was some sort of way to atone for the past and get those two guys together? It seems obvious that neither of them was actually the father, and she had absolutely no reason to think that Touma would ever be a good dad, especially since she knew he was in the yakuza. But she chose them anyway, and ended up putting her daughter in the best possible family.
I feel like everything suddenly picked up super fast and the relationship just jumped right in. Maybe they were running out of pages lol. I didn't mind it too much, but it definitely threw me off when it happened.
Once again, I looooved the concept, but I feel like the execution falls a bit short for me.
It felt like we were trying to explore way too many subplots for a story in two volumes… very interesting subplots though!
Because of that, we kind of sped through the solving of the problems. I mean even the MAFIA was involved and it was still pretty easily dealt with? Almost felt too easy!
Truly, I feel like it's mostly a pacing problem that could have been solved with more volumes!!
The only thing I wasn't exactly a fan of was the reveal about Sentaro's old feelings for Touma, because it made the shift in the relationship a little too "easy" I would say? It made Sentaro's current feelings less conflicting… I guess I just wanted them to be annoyed by each other for longer ahah. What can I say, I love mess.
But I'm glad we got to see a little more of Meguru, and even Ririko, which I wasn't expecting!
So basically, it didn't really go exactly where I thought it was going to go, and it felt a little rushed, but it was still pretty fun!!
Con Touma al volante este vol se centra en su POV y nos enteramos más de su vida, obviamente su pasado con Sentaro y Ririko (chismeeee 2.0). Siento que esta historia perfectamente podría tener otro vol más, pero creo que finaliza bien dentro de todo y sin muchas cosas pendientes.
El final me dolió un poquito, la conversación con Ririko y a quién estaba buscando para apoyarse en un momento donde seguro se sentía muy sola ;-; si hay algo que amo en una historia es: the character that haunts the narrative.
Someone said it's just like Buddy-daddies bl version AND I COULDN'T AGREE MORE Lol, it's just they're canon. well I'm still crashing out about Buddy-daddies not being canon😭 Seriously they're all so cute ughhhhh!!!! the most badass family lol
Der zweite (und leider letzte) Band der Reihe, bleibt wunderbar storylastig, vertieft diese sogar noch eher - das war eigentlich eine ziemliche Überraschung :D nach dem Start hatte ich nicht erwartet, dass es überhaupt so eine gute Story um die beiden Kerle und dem Kind geben würde. Natürlich ist diese nicht super deep, bei 2 Bänden, aber trotzdem wird mehr über die Vergangenheit geredet, deutlich mehr über Tomas Yakuza-Geschäft (ohne die typischen brutalen Yakuza-BL-Sachen) und mehr über die Patchworkfamilie, die sie gerade zusammen aufbauen. Es ist wirklich sehr süß, gleichzeitig ernst, und da storylastig, eigentlich kaum Sex, bzw. keinen voll gezeigten - das ist mal erfrischend, eben weil hier soviel Wert auf die Familie gelegt wird. Ich hätte mir fast noch mehr gewünscht, da die beiden Kerle sich auch ständig gegenseitig anmotzen, aber dann wäre die Reihe vermutlich in dieses übertriebene Drama reingerutscht. Daher ist es eben eine schöne kurze Story.
(Und das Mädchen ist wirklich geil drauf - ich bin ja generell kein Fan von Kindern im allgemeinen und von Kindern in Mangas schonmal gar nicht. Aber das hier war einfach echt gut, extrem nachvollziehbar in ihren kindlichen Reaktionen, und nicht nervig.)
Història que s'acaba convertint en BL de dos possibles pares d'una criatura de 6 anys que hauran de conviure amb ella arran de la recent mort de la mare (vividora, despreocupada i que no explica la veritat al testament). Un triangle amorós raríssim, amb gens de comunicació i comportaments egoistes totalment immadurs. Percebo zero química entre els protagonistes i només em lamento per la pobra nena, massa madura per a la seva edat, que no té més remei que conformar-se amb una família desestructurada... En fi, no m'ha agradat gaire ^^'
Esperable. Ya tenía mis sospechas de quién era el padre, así que no fue algo sorpresa. Pero tal vez para otros sí lo sea. Sobre Touma y Sentarou, fue lindo. Me gustó su relación. Aunque no sentí que la historia se centrara en su romance, sino en ellos formando lazos como familia. ¿Contará esto como spoiler? No lo creo. Después de todo, es un BL.
Lo vuelvo a decir: Sentarou es buena persona.
El final fue bastante meh, pero para el puntaje puse el ojo en toda la historia. Si bien hay momentos flojos, los que se tratan de ellos como padres son muy dulces. Esos recompensan a los otros.
i wish there was more >:<< i actually loved the dynamics in the manga i wanted to read more about their new relationship as lovers and partners as well as them as officially new fathers, see more scenes as them as a family, and see meguru grow up. also they were both like jobless at the end of the story.. and they have a kid.. soooooooooooooooo yea wanted to see what was up with that but there's only two volumes 💔💔 so i guess i'll never know
thank you random pinterest panel that led me to find peak
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Woah!! Low key I thought that Touma's job wasn't associated with the mob but I was indeed proven wrong... Anyways!! Also though he was involved it wasn't in the way that I thought so that was very interesting. And I totally predicted the ending. But I feel like it was obvious so not too big of a brag lol
aaaarghh I'm so sad it's done already. I would've read 3 more volumes at least if there were any... still a very cool and unique story tho, and surprisingly suspenseful in the second volume! love the dynamics between the kid and the "dads", overall very cool twist on a BL (Bi representation yeehaw)
I wish there was more development with the main two but overall liked their whole dynamic as a family. Also wished to know more about what happened to Sentaro's job in this volume. Other than that enjoyed the art and story overall, wished there was more!