Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“I want to satisfy my kind boyfriend the way he satisfies me.”

Do You Really Want Only a Meal? (Volume 2) by Yasu Tadano

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This is the second volume of a very light and fluffy romance between Masamune and Natsuki. It was a while since I read the first volume and I was racking my brains at first for memories of who these characters were and what had happened previously, so that wasn’t a great sign as to how engaging the first book was. But the plot here is gentle and cute enough that I was able to bop along, and I didn’t feel like re-reading the first one. […]

“I’m not a pervert!” — Queer Themes in 1980s Shonen Manga

Stop!! Hibari-kun! (Volume 1) by Hirashi Eguchi

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I had pretty mixed feelings about this book. Stop!! Hibari-kun! is a gag manga from the early 1980s (1981-1983), so it’s full of non-stop jokes. Kohsaku’s mother dies and he gets sent to live with relatives, who turn out to be a yakuza family. There are four daughters, and he thinks Hibari, who he’ll be going to high school with, is beautiful, but then it turns out that she’s actually a boy who prefers to dress as a girl and go to school as a girl. […]

“If this is the price I must pay for trying to run from you for so long, you couldn’t have made it cost more.”

Hereditary Triangle by Fumiya Hayashi

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It may be shocking to learn that I do read non-BL manga given the spree I’ve been on so far this year! Hereditary Triangle is a slow and thoughtful book about the impact of the past and how youthful relationships continue to resonate in the present. Koutarou and Kajiwara were childhood best friends, with Koutarou being more introverted and melancholy, and Kajiwara being outgoing and charismatic. As they enter their young adult years, they both get a crush on Touko, who starts dating Koutarou. Koutarou […]

Two Interlocked BL Manga

Star and Hedgehog by Nayuta Nago

Fox and Puppy by Nayuta Nago

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These two manga tell the stories of two sets of brothers who fall in love, although each book stands along. Star and Hedgehog follows Ikumi, a college student who’s at home for the summer and falls in love with one of the gardeners, Harukiyo. Ikumi at first thinks that Harukiyo hates him, but it turns out that Harukiyo is just shy and intimidated by how handsome he thinks Ikumi is. They get to know each other and start dating long distance. The art here is a […]

“I wanna see you fall…crazy in love with me.”

Afterglow by Wagimoko Wagase

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Higuchi is a young doctor whose aim is to become a cardiovascular surgeon, but he’s been transferred to a depopulating small port town to work in general internal medicine for a bit due to a traumatic experience he had while performing a surgery. He doesn’t like being out in the sticks and he feels like he’s being punished for messing up, although his supervisor is clearly trying to give him a mental health break and the time to recover from his flashbacks and shaking whenever […]

“American boyfriends seem like a real pain in the ass…”

I Can't Get Through the Night Alone by Yoh Matsumoto

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I Can’t Get Through the Night Alone is pretty paint by numbers BL but I enjoyed the plot contrivance, so it was an easy read and had some interesting ideas floating around in there. It’s 1950 and Seishiro is a former Japanese soldier who had a traumatic time during WWII and is working at a barman in a club. Jim is an American soldier with the occupying forces who spots Seishiro and basically falls immediately in love, then asks him to “date” him, with both men […]



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