Some of you have expressed (what seems like) interest in me reading yaoi manga that does not come from my original 30 Day Challenge pile. I don’t know if I could honestly continue the challenge past the original 30 days, or if I could handle reading more than planned, but I don’t mind continuing to do occasional BL/yaoi reviews.
So, if you are interested in seeing me continue this in some form after the challenge, I would suggest clicking on and buying from my Amazon Associates links (you’ll see one below before my review of Same Difference starts and also on my sidebar.) Once I get enough money from your purchases, I will allow all my readers to suggest titles for me to read and review, then let you vote on the final pick. If this is something you might want to see me do, click away!
Same Difference by Nozomu Hiiragi
Finally! I have come upon it! The yaoi manga in my large DMP pile that breaks the rape-y streak! I knew it couldn’t be all bad! 😀
Same Difference is about two elite businessmen in the same corporation. Not only are they the top of the tops, they dominate one tower each of their company’s building. But they’ve never met.
When they finally do cross paths (in what looks like a really cool men’s room with a nice view,) Ozaki decides to come on to the seemingly meek Tsuburaya. Unfortunately for Ozaki, Tsuburaya decides to turn the tables on him and they end up playing a cat-and-mouse game where the winner gets to be the top.
Ozaki thinks he’s about to win when Tsuburaya breaks his cock. It’s then that Ozaki starts to think that he might have feelings for his competitor, but he tries to ignore them. They make a deal for round two, once Ozaki heals, but Ozaki breaks his promise to meet up. This causes Tsuburaya to get a little more desperate, leading to them ultimately confessing their feelings and getting together. Then Tsuburaya admits that he’s been totally sadistic the entire time in order to draw out Ozaki’s true feelings. (Mwahahhaha!)
The second to last story (the final story goes back to Ozaki and Tsuburaya’s romance) is an adorable BL story about a high school kid befriending a set of twins, then falling in love with one despite the other wanting to get with him as well. And there’s glasses! It’s nice to see a little pocket of a different fetish/trope/moe/whatever you call it. I feel like the US just gets a lot of pretty boy yaoi manga and not much else sometimes.
Since I don’t have to talk about rape (Yaaaaaaaay!), I don’t have much else to say about the manga other than that I enjoyed it and the art style was really cute! Everyone has fluffy hair and their mouths look like bird mouths when they go chibi. In case my review didn’t make it clear, this yaoi is kind of comedic (Tsuburaya just *tortures* Ozaki and really makes him squirm!)
There is one thing that I don’t fully understand: the whole “elite” thing. It seems like most of Ozaki and Tsuburaya’s elite status comes from a) their looks and b) talents that have almost nothing to do with their job performance. Tsuburaya is supposedly an interpreter, but we only see him hanging around the office or the company president. It just seems odd that a company’s elite group of workers is determined by attractiveness instead of high-level positions or performance.
Either way, I really liked Same Difference and I hope more work by Hiiragi comes out in the near future.
