When the Heavens Smile

by Aki Senoo

Takagi, a rather cute and innocent guy, is best friends and class mates with Kumoi, a tall, intellectual guy. One day, Takagi is stunned to find a pencil sketch of a man between Kumoi's notebook pages that resembles his older brother... who passed away six years ago! Could Kumoi have possibly known his brother...?

Genres: Manga, Yaoi, Comics Manga, Graphic Novels

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Selena Pigoni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let down by such pretty art... I'm disappointed.

For the most part, this collection of short stories felt rushed. I get that they're supposed to be short, but everything went 0 to 60 with very little in between. Only two stories felt like they fit in the time they were given: "Fever Mark" and "That Which Falls from Heaven." The latter was the better of the two in my opinion, and I can't say either makes this worth purchasing (though both did increase my rating slightly). If you can get it from the library, I'd skip the others and just read those two.

Also, the ebook was weird. The images weren't sized correctly for my Fire tablet, so they didn't take up the whole screen. Also, they had the pages scrolling from left to right but the reading order on the pages was the original right to left. It didn't affect things too much, but it was weird.

[Alexander Adrien Ren Grey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love BL mangas that are like sampler packs with multiple stories featuring multiple couples. My favorite of them was the first story, "Fragment" as the theme revolves around whistling Scarborough Fair, one of my favorite songs.

[Librarian Jessie (BibliophileRoses) · Rating 3 out of 5]

As others expressed, this novel contains multiple stories. They are very hit-or-miss. I honestly, docked off points for the few that are horrific. However, some of the stories really enthralled you and made you feel the warm light fuzzies with gorgeous animation style.

[NK · Rating 2 out of 5]

The storytelling was very choppy and I felt like I was missing pages. Cute one shots.

[Myffanwy Geronazzo · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art style is gorgeous, but there's so many disjointed stories but al of them involve someone being dead/cheating on their gf, so the story plots are kind of awful.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute and sweet and well-written, these are love stories with some meat on their bones.

[Sheila Hall · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a complete waste of time.

[Yuuto · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel like this manga really suffered because it’s a collection of short stories, so everything was really rushed or very dull.

[J.J. Levesque · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm torn between 3 and 4 stars for this one. I really enjoyed it, but at the same time I was disappointed. The art was pretty, but the stories were so short! Each one was only one chapter, and just as I was getting into the characters, it ended and the next one began. The last two stories involve some of the same characters, but they were sad. Especially the last one. I wanted to cry after reading it. What a way to end a volume! I would really have liked to see the stories expanded, and who knows, maybe the author will or has.

[Ricki · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had a hard time really understanding any of the stories in this yaoi collection. The plots were thin and just did not make sense. Also, the BL was not congruent and did not add anything. Maybe it was a case of something being lost in translation, but I did not enjoy this one at all.

[Roo · Rating 1 out of 5]

wow this has a low average rating. it was mediocre. the stories weren't that bad, but they were confusing and unsatisfying.