Sep 14, 2020
//Mild spoilers, but nothing serious.//
Well damn, time to barbecue a sacred cow. If you asked me to sum up Liquor and Cigarette in two words, it would be 'subtly creepy'. It's nothing like Junjou Romantica, where the creepy smacks you in the face like a thrown half-brick, but it's there... oh boy, it's there. This was apparently the most popular BL manga of 2019, and I just can't see how. I mean, I know these things are technically aimed at girls like me, but it just made me feel sick tbh. But the question is... why?
Art 7/10
Well, it certainly wasn't the art. The art is
...
serviceable, and never dips below that. It's very consistent like that. The scenes of Spanish streets were decently atmospheric, but never more than that. The art was... nice, well-drawn, and probably would have been hot had I been into the relationship at all. But... why wasn't I into the relationship?
Story 3/10
Well, there's nothing going on here. There's a festival happening in town, and Camillo has decided to help his lightweight friend and liquor store owner, Theo, to improve his alcohol tolerance. Problem is, shock of shocks, Camillo is openly bi and into his childhood bestie. Sex ensues. And... that's it. The contest comes and goes offscreen, and there is essentially no plot. But while that's pretty dull, that still doesn't explain this story tickling my lizard brain, sending shivers of primal terror down my spine. So why does it?
Characters 3/10
Ding ding! We have a winner! Now, I can't speak for gay men, but as a lapsed yaoi reader, I found these characters to be pretty boring at best, and creepy at worst. The latter is mostly Camillo. There's very little to differentiate most of the characters in terms of voice (possibly a translation issue), and the cast is small, so their blandness feels inexcusable. That, and the alcohol thing. Almost every sex scene occurs with the 'straight' Theo under the influence, and that's... I can't get behind that, sorry. Camillo, on the other hand, is never allowed to get drunk, because this is yaoi, and he's the top, and getting drunk would mean he wouldn't be completely in control of the situation at all times. Or display human weakness. Remember, kids, getting drunk and allowing your feelings to actually show on your face is unmanly, and semes are forbidden to ever do anything that is not the height of masculinity. It feels really manipulative, anyway. Like, if the romance was presented as a drunken confession scenario on Camillo's side, and they have sex, I would be completely cool with this. If Theo ever called him out on it, and character development ensued in which Camillo learned about consent and lightened up a little, I would be cool with it. But no, we have a guy taking advantage of his drunken best friend until he learns to like it. It's not 'literally pin him to a wall and rape him' levels of creepy, but if a guy appeared behind me suddenly and trapped me against a wall like Camillo did in chapter one, he'd be getting a bottle to the face, friend or no.
You have to ask yourself, if Camillo wasn't incredibly attractive, would you be okay with his behavior? To me, his one redeeming factor is how expressive he is outside of the relationship, which is rare for BL semes. I just wish he did that in the relationship. There's a scene where he is described as looking 'anxious and jealous', and the face he uses there is the one he always holds during sex, which isn't exactly a hot look when a guy is going to town on your butt. Personally, I'd like him to look like he's having fun, or actually look turned on because of me, not looking like he wants to turn me into a lampshade tyvm. Wooden, stoic, hypermasculine tops are a persistent BL problem, but Liquor and Cigarette made a very unconvincing attempt to overturn this horrible trend by paying the most superficial lip-service to the idea of an expressive top.
Everyone else is your typical 'BL Side Character' stuff. There's a rival liquor store owner, and a guy Camillo hangs out with who he opens up to. I have already put more thought into trying to describe these guys than the author did in writing them, so let's move on.
Enjoyment 3/10
This manga is the epitome of style over substance. And that's kinda pushing it. The southern Spanish setting feels wasted, in that it's a backdrop to copious amounts of smut and that's it. The wine tasting contest happens offscreen, and has little to no cultural significance. Theo gets worked up over whether to take part or not, but the setting has... nothing to it beyond the look of the buildings, to be honest. Essentially, you get as much culture from this as you would by doing a ten second wiki trawl on latin-speaking countries, nor will you learn anything of note about either the liquor trade or tobacco. Drops of God, this is not.
Likewise, the sex is well-drawn and would be tame if it weren't dubiously consensual in most cases. But the relationship is almost entirely sexual, so when Camillo appears, you know something sexual is gonna go down. And... I was hoping for some romance too, not gonna lie, but the romantic aspect was sorely lacking in favor of constant, oppressive lust. As my partner said, could we at least have them have dinner or something? That'd be cute, and make the buildup to the sex more enticing. Hell, maybe they could even... talk about something not related to Camillo's desire to boink! For something so well rated, not just on here, but by youtubers at the time this manga launched, I was disappointed more than anything.
Overall 5/10
It's not as bad as classic BL, or even most BL, but that's largely because the vast majority of BL media is an open garbage fire, attended by wine aunts and the coked-up executives who profit off them. Not that GL is any better, but for different reasons. And this is dubcon. It had no need to be dubcon. It could have been sweet and pure, easily, if Camillo just got drunk with him. If the characters had a little more to them. But no, Japan had to make it creepy, and so I cry.
If you want something similarly questionable but with hotter, more imaginative sex scenes, go read Priapus. If you want something really weird but also hot as hell, with genuinely great emotional complexity, read MADK. If you want a bland, mediocre smutfest that's slightly less creepy than its competitors, but still creepy, read the mass-produced paycheck that is Liquor and Cigarette.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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