#Hidaka Shoko

[yaoi-reading]

Yuuutsu na Asa

[spirit-of-anime]

Utsukushii Koto - Konohara Narise & Inui Nao

[braincell4rent]

May I declare this the beginning of this ineffable tumblr!

What will I use it for? Well, as you may already have guessed, I was planning to translate some manga. To be precise, I wanted to give it a try with Hi ni Nagarete Hashi ni Iku for two simple reasons:

I love this author since Hana wa saku ka.

I need to practice my Japanese.

I actually purchased this manga a few months before the pandemic (so you can see how long this has been waiting in my shelf). I got to translate the first chapter, and that was it, didn´t continue. But I guess I should be back on track since I really want to know what happens next in the story.

So yep, this is it, my fellow readers.

I´ll be uploading here the first chapter (which I´ve got already edited) and I hope to be posting the next few ones as I work on them. So stay tuned for some historical content and very nice art!

[death-cheater]

I wrote something. if you dont mind, and have the time, would you drop by? : )

[writerheria]

[oratokyosaigunda]

Cookie cover 2023年11月 issue

[hatsumishinogu]

Hi ni Nagarete Bashi ni Iku Vol.9

[hakonohanayome]

Illustration by Shoko Hidaka for Sarazanmai - The Official Manga Anthology

[lgbtqmanga]

New Releases Sep 20, 2022

Anti-Romance vol. 1 by Shoko Hidaka

Suou and Ryou have been friends since childhood. The hairstylist and writer have lived together for six years now and, though they definitely aren’t dating, their close relationship is hard to define. Will they ever move beyond the nebulous territory of “more than friends” or will they keep living in a stalemate forever?

Seven Seas’ print version of Volume 1 will be a Special Edition with an extra art gallery of color pages, originally released as a separate booklet in Japan!

Monotone Blue by Nagabe

The critically acclaimed creator of The Girl From the Other Side and The Wize Wize Beasts of the Wizarding Wizdoms returns with this gorgeous Boys’ Love tale about animal boys falling in love.

Hachi the cat finds most things monotonous, especially high school. But when Aoi the lizard–a quiet, high-achieving transfer student–arrives, Hachi catches a glimpse of a more colorful life. If Hachi can help Aoi open up, unlocking new feelings in the process, maybe life won’t be so dull after all.

The (Pet) Detective Agency by noji.

Welcome to the Sako Detective Agency where they will solve every crime and mystery -from murders to missing pets- with a bit of charm and a lot of love!

Business has been slow lately at the Sako Detective Agency. So while Fumiyoshi appreciates having his strong, pink-haired assistant Rou Nakamura around, he may not have work for the big lug. When assignments finally do come coming in they aren't unsolved mysteries seen on TV, instead the Sako Agency gets tasked to look for missing cats and dogs... Thankfully Fumi has the best lost-pet hunter around and he only takes payment in the form of kisses!

She, Her Camera, and Her Seasons vol. 2 by Tsukiko (digital only)

It's the spring of Akari Miyama's last year of high school, and she's feeling constrained by her superficial friendships and stifling routine. But that all changes when she meets Yuki Sendo, the cool beauty wielding a twin-lens reflex camera. Akari's days begin to shine, and she discovers new feelings inside herself... Akari's euphoric bubble is burst as she begins to sense the deep bond between Yuki and Rintaro. To make matters worse, the feelings she's been trying to hide come through clear as day in her photo of Yuki. The pair's blossoming friendship is tested as secrets come into the light...

The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess vol. 2 (light novel) by Kotei Kobayashi, riichu

This means war! When Komari unintentionally disrespects one of her fellow Crimson Lords, Flöte Mascarail, things escalate until she finds herself pitted against the other generals in a deadly competition where the loser gets fired (read: blown up).Though most of her opponents are as tough as nails, Komari finds an unlikely ally in Sakuna Memoir, a newly appointed Crimson Lord who shares both her timidity and love of reading. If only Vill weren’t so jealous! But while all this is playing out, a sinister plot involving the assassination of key politicians in the Empire brews. With so much going on, will this shut-in vampire ever get a moment’s peace?!

[yugiohz]

what bl manga do you recommend thats kinda serious or just has a good plot

none omg I never rlly read serious bl

[spirit-of-anime]

Utsukushii Koto - Konohara Narise & Inui Nao

[tanenigiri]

Review #28: Anti-Romance (Volume 1)

Japanese title: アンチロマンス (Anchi Romansu)

Story and art: Shoko Hidaka

English publisher: Seven Seas Entertainment

Number of volumes: 1 in English, 2 in Japanese (complete)

Ending six years of stasis.

(This review contains story spoilers.)

This was a last-minute addition to this project, as I bought the physical copy on a whim since I saw some pretty good reviews of it online. Went into it knowing nothing, and now I think I’m gonna hunt for the scanlations since I need to find out what happens next, and the English translation of Volume 2 isn’t coming out until next year.

But I’ll just focus on the first volume of Anti-Romance here, which revolves around childhood friends Ryou and Suou who have been roommates for the past six years. It just so happens that both of them have been individually dealing with their feelings for each other, and neither of them has brought it up due to their own excuses and insecurities. However, both Ryou and Suou can feel that they do care for each other, but the lack of any acknowledgment keeps them from acting on these feelings.

It’s an incredibly frustrating situation, but at the same time, it leads to a fascinating dynamic between Ryou and Suou. Here are two characters who know each other better than anyone, but at the same time, they both feel like they don’t know enough about the other. On top of all of that, since both of them are in their mid-20s, they have to deal with pressures from their respective jobs. And it’s the mixture of their personal and professional issues that the story revolves around.

I’ll start with Ryou, as I think he has the more interesting plot arc between the two leads. He’s a writer for an agency, and while he’s seen to be quite serious about it, he doesn’t seem to have the same passion for it in the same way that he does for his side-projects. The most notable thing about this plot arc, though, is how Ryou has a pretty complicated relationship with Towada, his direct superior in the agency.

My opinion of Towada changed pretty much after every scene he was in, as it caught me off-guard how this story treats him as a major presence, putting a lot of depth to his character and even giving him scenes where he’s the one narrating. It’s an interesting difference from the other series I’ve covered for this project that have a similar vibe to this one - most notably There Are Things I Can’t Tell You, which solely focuses on its two leads. By the end of this volume, though, Towada might actually be my favorite character, as his dissection of the two leads’ relationship is what makes it move forward from its six-year stasis.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We find out from the first scene where he’s the one narrating that Towada finds Ryou cute, and this initially worried me as the power dynamic would put Ryou in a really unfavorable situation should Towada decide to pursue it. But not even a chapter later, I realized that Towada was being positioned as a mentor not only in Ryou’s job but also in his personal life, as from the single instance where he sees the two roommates interacting - Suou runs into Ryou and Towada while the latter two are heading to a bar after work, and Suou is seen to feel jealous as he wanted to spend the night drinking with Ryou - Towada’s already gotten a good idea of what’s going on between them.

True enough, when Towada invites Ryou to drink with him the night after the above encounter, Towada reads Ryou’s situation like an open book. Notably, he eggs him on by saying that there must be something going on between him and Suou if they’ve stayed as roommates for six years, and Towada says what is pretty much the thesis statement of this entire situation: “Perhaps you’re not the only one who knows how you feel, but pretends not to.” True enough, the scene right after this shows Ryou and Suou share their first kiss, and an internal monologue shortly after reveals that Ryou has been holding himself back from doing this for a long time.

But before we get to this confrontation, the story also spends some time exploring Suou’s professional life, though I personally think it’s not as interesting as Ryou’s half of the story. Suou works as a stylist in a hair salon, a path we’re told that he forced himself to take after the untimely death of his mother, which made him inherit the family salon. His own superior, Sakuma, is nowhere near as involved as Towada in terms of his relationship, but he does look after Suou as a junior, being strict with him but only doing so because he knows Suou will improve with that kind of treatment.

What Suou does get from his superior, though, is an offer to leave their current job and join Sakuma in his own salon business. At first I thought that this was gonna go down the route of Suou having to move out - especially since the parallel conflict in Ryou’s side is how he’s looking for a new apartment to live in - but we don’t really get that sense here. What I think is happening, though, is a different parallel, where this is supposed to represent how Suou’s “stuck” in many facets of his life. And true enough, Sakuma tells Suou an equally scathing line as Towada’s above: “People who can’t accept their current situation are bound to fall apart.”

I think this breaking down of the central conflict is where this story excels, as it’s able to tackle it even indirectly through the other plot arcs of the volume. I mentioned above that this story was going to mix Ryou and Suou’s personal struggles with their professional lives, but I didn’t realize that it was going to do so very closely. I think it’s a great decision, though, as it really allows the story to explore what’s going on with these characters and highlight their strengths and weaknesses.

In any case, it’s with those two scathing lines in their minds that Ryou and Suou share their first kiss, and I’m not surprised at all that they both seem to shut down because of it. This is where Ryou’s idea of looking for a new apartment comes into play, and when he confronts his roommate about it in the volume’s final chapter, Suou is understandably taken aback by the sudden decision. After all, six years of doing nothing about the situation and suddenly one of them wants to completely change it would catch anyone off-guard.

This confrontation proves to be the final spark needed for both of them to start admitting their feelings to each other, though. And while the volume doesn’t really end on a definitive note - we’re not exactly sure what Ryou’s and Suou’s decisions are regarding everything they’ve put on the table - we do get the sense that they’re finally doing something about their situation.

And that’s why I really wanna read the next chapters of Anti-Romance - Volume 1 doesn’t end on a cliffhanger per se, but rather a stop in the journey when there’s still a lot of ground left to cover. It’s been a really fascinating journey so far, and I can already tell that it’s gonna be even more interesting once that journey continues.

Random thoughts that I couldn’t fit elsewhere:

We find out in one of the story’s last scenes that one of the main reasons why Towada is so invested in Ryou and Suou’s relationship is because he seems to have had a similarly complicated relationship with another man when he was younger. We actually meet this man in this volume - Junichi, who’s the bartender in the place where Ryou and Towada have the revealing conversation I talk about above - and the second kiss of the volume even happens between Towada and Junichi. The latter even goes on to say that he “still loves” the former, but interestingly, Towada calls it a lie. There are a lot of things left unsaid between these two, and I’m almost certain that we’re gonna get more out of them in the next volume, and I have a feeling that it’s gonna be just as messy as the main relationship.

There’s one other slightly prominent character we’re introduced to in this volume that I haven’t mentioned above: Misono, Sakuma’s friend from high school who’s looking to help him with his business. We don’t really get much from Misono yet, but he does have a really interesting line after they first bring up the idea of the business to Suou. Once they’re left alone, Misono calls Sakuma out for his line that I point out above, saying that not everyone is able to “move forward without hesitation” like Sakuma can. I of course got the feeling that there’s something personal going on here, and while both Sakuma and Misono deny that something’s going on between them when asked by Suou, I’m pretty skeptical myself.

I’m still a bit confused about whatever Ryou was writing in that very first scene? He first says it’s an interview, but then Suou describes it as a novel, and the snippets both of them bring up make it sound like a diary. Whatever it is, Towada notes that Ryou’s the most passionate when he’s working on it, so I’m excited to see what that’s all about.

Thanks for reading! Like I said in the intro, Anti-Romance was the latest addition to this project, as this physical copy was only released earlier this month. I’m glad I decided to buy it, as it really turned out to be more enjoyable than I thought.

[death-cheater]

I honestly had not known there was such a chapter, even though it had been there for nearly a decade!! xD

It was so short though, and I wished sensei explored more of it, but nonetheless, it was sweet knowing they did went have dates. 🥹

[writerheria]

[rascunh3i-edicoes]

Mizutama Puzzle by Hidaka Shoko

[hatsumishinogu]

Anti Romance Vol.2 (end)