“Look at Me.”: Identity & Acceptance

Read it on Renta!:
Look at Me. by Momose An

Japanese Title:
俺を見て。
Ore wo Mite.

Links:
Momose An Twitter
Doodle Twitter
Momose An Pixiv

When I heard we’d be getting a Momose An title on the site, I was personally ecstatic. I’m not sure how well-known she is in the West, but Momose An is currently an incredibly popular BL mangaka in Japan. She has two smash-hit, long-running series, Naka Made Aishite (Yuzuriha, my love… I use your LINE stamps every day…) and Osananajimi ja Gaman Dekinai, and her series Shitasaki kara Koi was highly influential for the cakeverse genre. I haven’t seen much fanfare for her overseas, and from what I can tell none of her other stories have been licensed.

Look at Me. is actually one of Momose An’s earliest titles. Published in 2017, you can tell she was still coming into her art style at the time, as this is quite different from the angular and boyish characters she currently draws—but the essence of her style still remains (particularly when she draws the side-views of characters). The art is softer and rounder, but still equally a joy to look at.

The story of Look at Me. centers around childhood friends Kyosuke and Saku. Saku was beautiful from birth, with a gentle and feminine face, so Kyosuke initially mistook him for a girl. Most people, in fact, mistook him for a girl—and were often disappointed to find he wasn’t. Not Kyosuke, though—young and blunt, Kyosuke didn’t care one way or another if Saku was male or female. But unfortunately, Kyosuke was too young to save Saku from an adolescence of trauma, isolation, and loneliness.

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Reunion & Inspiration: Sorato’s “Fill in Color”

Read it on Renta!:
Fill in Color by Sorato

Japanese Title:
フィルイン・カラー

Links
Sorato Twitter (author)
Sorato Pixiv
comic picn Twitter (publisher)

Next up in our series of reviews spotlighting some of the manga included in our “Stunning Art Sale” is a manga that’s all about art and finding the beauty in life.

Sorato’s Fill in Color is a nice blend of cute and awkward boys, fun dramatic irony, and steamy goodness all wrapped up in some gorgeous art.

Our story opens with Saki (the blonde dude on the cover there), a young man working as a freelance designer, trying to drink his woes away after a disappointing meeting with his latest client. Anyone who’s worked in a creative field where your own personal vision is constantly at the mercy of the demons of capitalism should be able to relate to his struggle 泣き笑いしている顔

On his way home, he runs into a beautiful young man with stunning red hair — stopping him right in his tracks.

Read on to find out how the spontaneous romance between these two develops into something beautiful and meaningful — just like a work of art.

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“Studio of Longing” by Haruyosi Hiro

Read it on Renta!:
Studio of Longing by Haruyosi Hiro

Japanese Title:
憧憬のアトリエ
Doukei no Atelier

Links:
Haruyosi Hiro Twitter

“Will you imagine I’m a woman and touch me?”

Touched after seeing Masafumi Tsurumi’s painting, “Prostitute in Agony,” in the hallway of their art high school, Kei Higuchi seeks out the other boy to get to know him and pick his brain. While Tsurumi is struggling to paint his vision for his graduation project of the same theme, Higuchi is willing to do anything in his power to assist, hopeful to see Tsurumi’s art at its peak. But Tsurumi is a virgin high school boy—how in the world is he supposed to understand and express the feelings of a proustite as she’s in the throes of passion, being sexually dominated and overcome by pleasure? Thus, when Tsurumi drags Higuchi to the nurse’s office, Higuchi should have seen it coming when Tsurumi requests, “touch me like you’d touch a woman.”

Thus starts their mutually beneficial relationship. By fooling around together, Tsurumi gets to feel what it’s like to be dominated by a man—constantly asking Higuchi to go further and further with him—and perhaps they’ll both find some further inspiration for their upcoming graduation projects while also experiencing real sexual pleasure for the first time.

As Higuchi finds himself catching feelings, though, he’s not sure what to do. Tsurumi is very free-spirited (and honestly rather dumb) and entirely focused on his painting, so he doesn’t seem like the the type to involve his emotions in this kind of situationship. Meanwhile, Tsurumi is secretly finding himself yearning for Higuchi less as an object of inspiration and more as simply an object of desire—at what point does his LARP as a female prostitute end, and his real sexual appetite as a young man begin?

Continue reading ““Studio of Longing” by Haruyosi Hiro”