Age Rating: 18+
Genre: BL
Price: $12.99
It's never a good sign when I pick up a manga I bought several months ago and I can't remember whether I've read it or not. It's an even worse sign when I have to read 20 pages before I figure out that, yes, I actually have read it; it's just that none of it made a strong enough impression on me to linger in my memory.
I'm not saying that Crushing Love is bad, exactly. It's not bad. It's competently drawn. It's enjoyable to read. The comedy scenes are funny, the emotional scenes tug at the heartstrings, the sex scenes are erotic. And yet, even though I enjoyed myself while I was reading it, the whole collection seems insubstantial, somehow. The characters have no noticeable traits beyond being the seme or the uke of their respective couples. The plots are unremarkable retreads of the same old stuff I've read a thousand times -- there's an example of the My Beloved Is My Childhood Friend Who Will Never Love Me As I Love Him story, and two versions of the I'm In Love With My Sex Buddy story, both set in a high school, neither particularly memorable.
The title story is the only one that's in any way unusual; it begins with a rather convoluted bit of backstory involving an ex-boyfriend, an outstanding debt, and a very silly gamble, and rapidly moves to an impromptu trip to Kyoto, nicotine withdrawal, and an Alice in Wonderland-themed cosplay cafe, and no, that last bit doesn't make much more sense in context. (In fact, I got the distinct impression that Ritsu Natsumizu just had the urge to draw the main character in bunny ears.) The seme of this story is the most distinctive character in the book, but that's not saying much, and the uke is yet another dewy-eyed spineless nonentity.
I don't object to fluff. I like fluff. And I have to admit that while I was reading it, I liked Crushing Love -- but half an hour after reading it for the second time, I'm having trouble summoning up any mental images of particular scenes or pages, or any enthusiasm for the book as a whole. It's slight and ephemeral, like candy floss for the brain, only without the slightly sick feeling afterwards. Indeed, you're unlikely to feel much of anything after reading Crushing Love. Its pleasures are all of the moment, and they won't last for long after you've finished it.
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