Sasaki is frequently tardy, sleeps during class, and doesn’t take notes. Miyano is dutiful, caring, and an otaku. At first blush, the two seem an odd match, but right upon their first meeting, as they try to save another student from being jumped at school, it’s clear that the two share a bond, one that grows deeper as they chat on the train, share cookies, and otherwise spend their high school life together.
From the first scene, this new shounen-ai series reminded me of last year’s anime romance, Horimiya. Both have beautifully drawn characters but employ a cutesy style, and are told in vignettes rather than episode-long stories. But further, these two series share this wondrous, vibrant animation style, with Sasaki and Miyano frequently making use of bursts of flowers and bubbles (like you might see in an overlay in a photo editing app).
The titular characters are also rather interesting. Sasaki takes the role of the lovesick senpai while Miyano is a clueless BL otaku. I think it’s a very purposeful and interesting choice that they’re developing as such, adding what I think is that element of “will they or won’t they” in addition to making the series more palatable for those that would be interested in trying out a BL series, but not one that’s overtly sexual. Sasaki is presented as being attracted to boys and girls, though there’s a block for him when it comes to the earlier, while Miyano may be the type to see manga as manga and RL as RL. As to what that means for the series, I don’t yet know, though I would prefer some character and relationship development to occur (again, like that in Horimiya), though I don’t know if that’ll happen. If it stays in this mode of cute vignettes, though, then I’ve already checked out.
A note to our Christian readers out there—there’s a spectrum of viewpoints about whether and how to approach series with yaoi content. We’ve given some thoughts in the past, which might help you further decide whether to jump into this series or to leave it be.
Sasaki and Miyano can be streamed on Funimation.
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