Read on Renta!:
Sweet Bitter Sweet by Mitsunaga Hirama
Japanese Title:
スイート・ビター・スイート
Links:
GUSH_info (Publisher)
Today is Valentine’s Day, the day we celebrate romance and relationships—whether our own, or other people’s. For those of us who aren’t in a pair and also don’t have Galentine’s Day plans, one common way to celebrate is to binge rom-coms, and for a lot of us fujoshi the best equivalent is spending the evening reading BL.
So I have one tooth-rottingly sweet BL from the Renta! catalogue to recommend—and it’s about chocolate, so two birds with one stone! Sweet Bitter Sweet is the story of Mashiba, an office worker with an incredibly hectic life. He likes to stave off the doom of his countless hours of overtime with chocolate, and has become somewhat of a chocolate connoisseur. Thus, when he sees a new chocolate shop has opened, he’s desperate to go. After many days of missing his chance due to working past the store’s business hours, he decides to leave work in a “timely” (albeit still quite late) fashion—only for the shop keeper to announce he’s sold out for the day.
But the shopkeeper, Minemura, takes pity on him and invites him in to sample some of the new chocolates he’s been developing. After finding out Mashiba has quite the palate for chocolate (and is very passionate about it due to his workplace circumstances), he asks Mashiba to help him research and develop new products for his store.
As they begin to spend more time together and grow closer, Mashiba finds himself just as interested in Minemura as he is the chocolate—and even begins to fantasize about kissing him, among a meriad of other things. But does a plain, tired, boring salaryman like him have anything to offer a handsome chocolatier?
This is definitely the type of BL that could give you a sugar rush, it’s so absurdly sweet and cute. While Mashiba is silently fretting that Minemura only sees him as a friend and could never possibly be interested in him, poor Minemura is constantly dropping hints about how much he loves spending time with Mashiba and how he’s fallen for him. The reviews seem pretty divided on Minemura’s meddlesome friend Hayasaka, though—some hate him, and some seem to think he added a little extra spice.
The art is clean and crisp and very expressive. I’d also highly recommend this to those who’re fans of the “ordinary guy” type of bottom, since Mashiba is just your everyday tired salaryman. Minemura is definitely the “prettier” of the two, so this is a double-whammy for those who enjoy the plain bottom/hot top combo. The ero scenes are pretty minimal, with the building tension between Mashiba and Minemura taking center stage, but it’s still nothing to wag a finger at.
Overall, a very cute story that encapsulates the sweetness and bitterness of falling in love—the giddiness of looking forward to seeing them, the loneliness when they’re not around, the distress of not knowing how they feeling about you, the comfort and security of requited feelings… all of that makes up the full bundle of love, and this manga conveys it wonderfully.
Anyway, I hope everyone has a nice Valentine’s Day! I know for some it can be a very bittersweet holiday, especially since they’re a lot of social pressure to not spend it alone. But I’ve found it can be the perfect holiday for self-care—treating yourself to your favorite foods, taking a nice long bath, getting cozy in bed, and immersing yourself in the BL you love!
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