Yankee & Carameliser

by Chiuko Umeshibu, Emma Schumacker (Translator)

Take one influencer and one bad boy extraordinaire, whisk in a sprinkling of sweets, a scoop of social media and you get…? Maki and Akito’s love story, hot out of the oven! After all, even though Maki might have a bit of a bad rep, the guy must be just as gooey on the inside as the glorious goodies he posts all over social media. So when Akito gets a taste of how dangerously delicious his desserts are, he can’t help wanting a taste of the man himself…

Genres: Manga, Romance, LGBT, Boys Love, Contemporary, Food, Yaoi

160 pages, Paperback

Published October 28, 2025

Reviews

[marcia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This has potential but I'm underwhelmed. It's great that the story explores how harmful gender roles are, but I have trouble buying into the romance. You can tell Maki is the mangaka's favorite because he's well-developed and nuanced, whereas Akito is a blank slate. I wish we also get to know him better.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a cute little story that warms the heart and involves cooking 10’s across the board

[Faith · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75

Very cute at times. I just wish it was a bit longer so we could get to know Akito. Maki has a lot of depth to him but Akito is just.. there and we don’t know much about him.

I like how it also tackles gender roles but it’s so short there isn’t much room to explore it more.

This would have been much better as an older teen manga too. The little bit of smut at the end wasn’t needed.

[Kiwi · Rating 2 out of 5]

just a really half baked story that is too rushed to really be anything. it would have been cute and i maybe would have liked it if the story had actually done anything

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Soooooo cute and soft. I loved how both of them found sparks between each other while startingas friends and cooking amazing sweets.

[Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really like this volume! Love stories about influencers and men with complicated relationships to heterosexuality/cisgenderism. My only complaint is I wish they explored more about Maki's experiences and let him open up about his emotional abuse to Akito. My dream is that we get a second volume set like 6 years in the future that gives us more resolution in Maki's end and delves more into reassuriing him that Content is not the main reason Akito is with him. A great manga just wish a few things were a bit more fleshed out

[Gabriele | QueerBookdom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Representation: gay Japanese protagonist, queer Japanese protagonist, Japanese secondary and tertiary characters.

Content Warning: homophobia, violence.

Two reasons to read this one-shot manga: delicious sweets and even more delicious protagonists. This story is short, but still very impactful, especially because of its discussion of antiquated gender roles and how traumatic can those ideas be on a child's psyche.

PS (to whoever happens upon this review): should nudity be a content warning when it comes to illustrated media? It is not like there is much in this (except for a couple of panels), but nonetheless I would love to hear about other people's opinion.

[Cas ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aaaaa so cute and soft and sweet 🥰
I’m such a sucker for the “secretly a crybaby” yankee trope. And this was extra cute with the baking angle!!

[alex :) · Rating 3 out of 5]

the baking sweets and starting a cooking channel concept was cute and all, but there was hardly any angst which is something i need in about 99.9% of the books i read :p

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Could've been a bit longer, but I really liked it. A super sweet, surprisingly emotional story about a lonely guy finding love where he least expected it.

I'm...not huge on the whole online influencer culture, but it is a realistic depiction of modern youth. Akito is a good-looking, outgoing, super smart, popular guy at school who's also very good at figuring out how to make online videos go viral. Usually he records things with his friends - like dances or karaoke (since he apparently has a great singing voice as well) - but he has a secret.

Which is that he knows Maki the school delinquent's secret. Well, one of them. The fact that Maki, who gets in fights and has been kicked out of one school and suspended from theirs, runs an anonymous twitter account where he posts photos of the amazing things he bakes every weekend.

Akito finds this absolutely fascinating, and he wants two things: to taste Maki's baked goods and to record him baking them, so he can transform his online presence into something much more popular.

Honestly, one of the flaws with this story is that we get no sense of what Akito wants to do with his life: one of his teachers basically begs him to apply to more prestigious universities, since he's top of his class, but he seems to have very little in the way of ambition. Is he planning to just make money from online influencing forever? Or maybe channeling it into advertising or marketing or something that uses his creative skills? Wish that'd been gone into a bit more, but it really wasn't possible without expanding this into a series. (Which it could've been, easily.)

Maki's likely not even going to go to college: he's talking about job applications by the end of this volume, so I think he's going to transition straight into the working world. Also not mentioned: what types of jobs he's looking for, although it seems like it'd be a waste if it wasn't something in baking or confectionaries, because he's extremely talented at it and loves it.

But this story is mainly about the two of them spending every Saturday together, baking and filming and then going out for one cafe treat that Akito jokes seemed like a date.

Except...it's not a joke to Maki, who has been falling in love with this handsome, charming guy who showers him with attention and compliments and is just so nice and fun to be with.

That's Maki's other big secret...that he's literally only a bleached, pierced, punch-happy delinquent as a way to hide the sensitive, sweet guy his parents and then his classmates rejected. He grew up loving "girly" things like cute toys and kitchenware. His parents were stressed about it, and his dad was so deeply homophobic that he actually left their family because he couldn't deal with it. His mom kept him but doesn't seem particularly loving - she's away a lot and gives the impression she's just doing her duty while paying her son as little attention as possible.

So Maki is lonely, attention-starved, longing for things he's been raised to believe he shouldn't want, and afraid to talk to other people because he can't be open about any of his true self.

Until Akito starts praising him for all the things he's been trained to hate about himself...and he discovers that he really can be happy.

I was honestly expecting more drama with Akito's friends getting annoyed that he was ditching them for secret time with Maki, which again might've happened in a longer story. Instead, the space was given to the relationship growth between Akito and Maki, and Akito's eventual realization that Maki is both gay and very afraid of anyone knowing about that.

Akito's progression to "oh I'm also in love with Maki" was a bit fast-paced, maybe, but it felt natural. After all, he'd been fixated on him for a while, for reasons he hadn't been fully aware of. And he's so flexible and easygoing that he just rolled with it as soon as he realized he was a whole lot more drawn to Maki than to the cute, nice girls at school.

This felt very gentle and healing, despite the tears. A lovely little one-shot.

[Sol · Rating 1 out of 5]

Skip this one!!!

Our love interest Maki (the titular yankii in question) deserves so much better than our asshole of a male lead, who strongarms/blackmails him into starting a Youtube channel and won't stop pestering him about it for the entire rest of the book. It got so annoying to have Maki actually be struggling with something real, only for Akito to be like "But dude, we have to film!" like oh my god, shut up, you are so annoying!!! A manga about content creation is so damn dull.

I also can't help feeling like Maki could do so much better than him and just settled for the first boy who accepted him. Akito is about as interesting as a stale slice of bread whereas Maki actually has some interesting things going for him. I did not sense any romantic chemistry between them whatsoever. I truly get the sense that their relationship will be short-lived, which is so hilarious and rare for a BL.

I'm also disappointed because based on the explicit content warning and just the title and cover in general, I thought that these characters were going to be at least in their 20s. But nah. 17 year olds. So gross. No thank you.

[Namratha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to start the new year with a food-based manga, and I couldn’t have asked for a more precious read.

Aloof, handsome Maki has been pegged as the bad boy delinquent of the school. Rumors are rife about his violent past, and he enjoys the feared distance that everyone keeps for him.
But sullen Maki has a hidden talent: he can whip up beautiful, intricate desserts. And the only one who is aware of this is the chatty and engaging social media enthusiast, Akito.

As Akito watches the "anonymous" user post one gorgeous creation after another with zero social traction, he is driven by the need to taste Maki's delicious creations and help him grab more eyeballs. An unwilling alliance grows between the reserved Maki and the sunshine-dispenser, Akito which soon grows into an easy friendship….and something more.

This is a sweet manga about opposites being pulled into each other’s orbits, sharing delicious food, and destroying hidden emotional demons with warmth, affection, and understanding.
Low on angst, high on heartwarming moments…this was the perfect read to usher in 2026

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The bad boy at school has a penchant for making delicious desserts so another boy at school decides to make content featuring these creations, but not showing his face, just the creations. As they get closer it's more than just enjoyment of desserts but a romance that blooms when bad boy and content creator realize they're interested in each other and want to make a go of it.

It's about revealing ones true self but it veers into adult territory (as a high school librarian) evaluating this one with several panels toward the end of the manga that were unexpectedly revealing.

Food forward and all about identity. I'd definitely have liked to try a few of those desserts!

[Khael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute but they only showed the character of the blonde, meanwhile the other feels like he was added on just to encourage him to upload his baking skills and become boyfriends, theres nothing else about him at all. I liked the blonde's backstory and him struggling with understanding "how to be a guy" because of his parents not accepting him for simply liking cutesy stuff despite not being trans, and then in the end he finally understands it. Another with his guilt of not knowing if he's gay or not, later he then exploits himself to try to "figure it out" more, thankfully nothing going further after the guy in the hotel found out about his age.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

SO CUTE. Ah, I really liked this. The relationship was adorable and so wholesome. I wish they talked more about Maki's insecurities and there was more of Akito validating him and his likes, but overall this was so good. I do kind of wish they didn't have on page sex, because it didn't necessarily fit with the rest of the tone of the story and it felt a bit rushed. I think a fade to black scene with more of a focus on them afterwards would've been better, but I still didn't mind it.

[Breanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to the publisher and edelweiss for the ARC!

This was a cute little one-off. Knowing that it's a one-off, you have to expect things to move pretty quickly. I can't fault their communication given that they're teenagers and can understand their insecurities and anxieties. I'm so grateful that we have an adult who absolutely shuts things down when he realizes the boy he brought to the love hotel is underage (a very small moment, but so appreciated).

[Ryofire · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really cute realistic fiction boys love manga. The characters are great, the art is lovely, and the story is really nice. The writing isn't exactly great all the time, and Akito in particular is a bit too dense and bad at communication, but it's generally quite enjoyable. It's one of the better cooking-focused m/m stories I've read.

[Ada · Rating 4 out of 5]

***Zaterdag 17 januari 2026
Translator: Emma Scumacker
⭐️3.5 - i liked it somewhat?

I have never read about blackmail with such a cheerful blackmailer 😅.

I wish I could remember who sucked me in but I suspect someone who enjoys food manga. I know I bought it because it was on sale and a standalone.

Although it being plastic wrapped is very silly. I have read ecchi manga that was more explicit than this with all of the censoring going on.

[Swathi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and sweet. It was a slow burn about two people figuring out who they were with a background of a dessert blog. It was adorable. I also like that one of the main leads is a bad boy with a squishy filling!!!

[J-Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I would’ve read the summary, I would’ve passed on this cute story that focuses more on accepting oneself rather than being an influencer. Personally, I hate influencers and all that it entails, so I’m glad that I actually liked this.

[RoastedBeefed · Rating 4 out of 5]

- Bad boy who is super good at backing gets convinced to start a baking YouTube channel
- Super cute! Very short but I like the confession scene and I enjoy just how much they like each other
- I love how Maki Naofumi (blonde hair) is such a crybaby
- Would totally reread

[Lily Ackerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

Es una historia muy dulce y con personajes con los que es fácil encariñarse.

La trama no es muy compleja y deja varios hilos sueltos, pero en general creo que es muy disfrutable y funciona bien si quieres leer algo ligero.

[isa :b · Rating 5 out of 5]

escuchenme, como experta en el yankee x popular/top student que ha leído muchos y es su cliché favorito, ESTE ES EL MEJOR QUE HE LEÍDO. ES DEMASIADO LINDO Y PRECIOSO Y TIERNO Y ADORABLE, es de mis mangas favs en general, ok

[Ana Paz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The character design and the expressions of Maki where so refreshing. Love a man that can't control his blushing 😌

[Mindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Melike Sevindik · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 ⭐️

[maria ☆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

YO 😭💔🥺👉👈

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delinquent on the outside, gooey sweetie on the inside. Perfect. No notes. Ok, I mean, I'll never turn down a Yankee BL but this was actually super sweet. Pun...maybe intended?

[Wren · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has RECIPES

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

for such a short read i thought it was pretty well done. it was a quick and fun read for sure