Deko-Boko Bittersweet Days, Volume 2 (Dekoboko Sugar Days)

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I was approved for the arc months ago and ended up taking too long to get around reading it. I'm slightly mad at myself for that. Because this manga was so cute! The characters were fleshed out nicely and they were so adorable. I loved how frequently and patiently they communicated with each other. And we all know communication makes a romance perfect, right? 😁 So, of course, I loved Rui and Yuujirou. The humor was wonderful too. Simply put, they both have to grow up. For Rui that means speaking up, and for Yuujirou it means accepting that things won't always go the way he plans, and those are both very difficult things to do. It hits especially hard because up until Rui says something, their story has been blissfully happy: they are out to two of their friends and basically living the romance novel dream. But Yusen seems to want them to learn that a successful long-term relationship means that there'll be some bumps in the road along the way, and that the true test of their romance will be how well they manage to navigate them. Part of that, of course, is also eventually coming out to their parents, which is handled fairly well – and the revelation that Yuujirou's older brother Yuichiro has known all along and is perfectly happy for them is a very nice touch. Ultimately everyone just wants everyone else to be happy; the purpose of the book is to get them to the place where they can be. I loved every character that was featured. While I love Rui and Yuujirou, Rui’s brother is my favorite character in the book. I do wish we got to know the supporting characters more, but it’s entirely possible that we got to know them well in the first volume. I’ll find out when I read that. However, as it stands, some of the supporting characters fly through while others are there often but don’t get much character growth. If this series were to continue, that’s something I’d love to see. Featuring Yuujiro Matsukaze, judo champion, an aspiring architect. He is quite short ( Quit kissing my forehead. It just reminds me of how much taller you are) and occasionally bothered by that. The boys are in their final year of high school and in general they are quite clear eyed on the choices they need to make.

Dekoboko Sugar Days was one of my favorite BL manga of 2020, and I’ve been anxiously awaiting the second one-shot from mangaka Atsuko Yusen following Rui and Yuujirou. Dekoboko Bittersweet Daysis the sequel manga that takes readers into Rui and Yuujirou’s relationship as they learn to deal with the uncertainty of the future and coming out to their families. The manga is published and localized in English by TOKYOPOP via their LOVE x LOVE collection that focuses on publishing queer manga romances. The one-shot is edited by Lena Atanassova, translated by Christine Dashiell, and features a cover and logo design by Sol DeLeo. He is together with Rui Hanamine 186cm long, creative, half French, domestic and with a lot of housekeeping skills. Tall bottom representing one could say, which is good in a genre where height almost always is used as a signifier to one’s character role. Unlike other Yaoi manga, this one really hit the "this could happen in real-life" button. Rui and Yuujirou are faced with a lot of uncertainty as the end of their senior year looms closer. You have Yuujirou who is planning out his and Rui's next steps, never wanting to part from him. Yet, you have Rui looking into a few dreams of his own. With Dekoboko Bittersweet Days, Yusen makes me want to stay with Rui and Yuujirou as their romance matures and life throws curveballs. I hope we get to see these two grow with each other in the future.The best ever! I love how everything I thought was going to happen ended up being something more wonderful and absolutely beautiful. While volume 1 had you laughing like crazy for their silly antics and funny moments, this completely took those characters and made them into something more than what you expected. I was literally tearing up trying to hold my tears because the growth and development they have was so beautiful and touching you can't help but be proud of how far they have come. It feels like you're part of their lives and you get to grow up with them and then when With that being said, the art continues to be exceptionally cute, carrying the manga through its duller periods. It’s still an enjoyable read overall, but “Bittersweet Days” just doesn’t reach the same heights as the original. And: Then again, it might be impossible to afford a stand alone house right away, which, definitely combined with the wish of a cooking island and a garden seems a realistic take on things (the Tokyo housing market, am I right 😂). One thing to appreciate about the one-shot is that it’s accessible to new readers and has enough sweetness to keep its wholesome core while exploring the importance of communication and the trouble that comes with entering the adult world after high school. Dekoboko Bittersweet Days is even better than the first part of the series! It's not common actually, so this surprised me positively. Yuujirou and Rui were childhood friends, but they actually got together already in the first part and now in this second they need to think about the future. High school is over soon and the boys need to think about where to study and it's not necessarily the same place, the same country even. I really loved the realism and how nothing is a real obstacle if you fight for what you love. The slow burn romance and real feelings get through easily and all in all, the manga is heartwarming and melancholic too. Growing up is never easy.

Rui and Yuujirou have been best friends since they were kids. Now that they confessed the feelings they’ve been harboring for each other, it should be smooth sailing. They haven’t told anyone about their relationship, but life is good until they face the possibility of a long-distance relationship. Will their relationship survive this bump in the road? Since the first volume took place in high school, this means that Atsuko Yusen has a built-in easy way to throw a hurdle in their path: college. With graduation looming, Rui and Yuujirou have to reconcile their individual career dreams with their mutual desire to stay together, and this gives Rui a much-needed chance to prove that he's more than just the sweet boy who follows Yuujirou's lead. The story begins to play with ideas of masculinity, both in a performative sense and as something a bit more rooted in Rui's sense of self. Fortunately, it has nothing to do with the book's racier content – it would have been easy (albeit wrong) to tie the whole “top and bottom” thing to Rui's perception of himself as just as much of a man as Yuujirou, but their sex life is never brought into the equation as anything but an expression of their mutual feelings. Instead, it's about Rui having the wherewithal to not take the easy way out of things – he could have easily chosen Yuujirou over his dream education, but that would have been “choosing” rather than making a real, difficult decision. It's important to him that he's financially able to help support Yuujirou just as Yuujirou wants to support him – he doesn't want to be dependent, but an equal partner. This comes out in the much more stereotypically masculine phrasing of manga; Rui expresses his performative manhood by saying that he wants to “support” his boyfriend, but we can read this as framing their relationship as not being in relation to anything or anyone but themselves, rather than one of them being seen as more feminine than the other. Deboboko Bittersweet Days" follows Yuujirou and Rui who are childhood best friends and now..lovers. The book is set in high school. The boys are in their final year. With graduation looming, life presents them new hurdles. Yuujirou plans to be a architect and Rui, a fashion designer. Now they have to reconcile their career dreams with their mutual desire to stay together forever. They are in love with each other but afraid of confessing that to each other. And now that Rui is planning to go to France for studying, their blooming relationship faces the biggest challenge ever. Will the boys be able to overcome their fears and risk to choose an uncertain future where they might or might not stay together??The first half of the manga consists of some really cute scenarios, while also presenting Yuujirou and Rui’s hopes and anxieties about how their relationship will progress in the future. This is a very promising setup that I was excited to see the narrative explore, but it ended up falling rather flat.