Sasaki to Miyano
Sasaki and Miyano

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Sasaki to Miyano is a breath of fresh air in the BL genre. Most BL stories fall into one of two categories, shounen ais which focus on the innocent feelings of love where often the characters never fully seem aware that they have romantic feelings for each other therefore a proper relationhip doesn't come to fruit or yaoi/erotica which focuses has a lot more on focus on R18 scenes and romance often becomes a secondary aspect. Sasaki to Miyano is different in the sense that while it falls more in the first category yet there is clear progression in the relationship, we can see the ... characters fall in love and how it changes their relationship from friends with ambigously romantic feelings towards each to actual boyfriends. Another big thing the story gracefully avoids is the toxic tropes that often plague BL titles. There are no nonconsensual kisses or forced contact of any kind.

Miyano and Sasaki meet at school where one day a student it bullied. Miyano wants to help him but as he is quite a short, frail looking boy he isn't really in a position to do so. That is when Sasaki strides in and puts a stop to the fight. This is what results in a chain of events, while Miyano makes friends with the boy who was bullied, Sasaki becomes interested in Miyano. First, their friendship is a rather one sided thing as Miyano thinks Sasaki is just a bothersome upperclassman who keeps calling him cute nicknames and won't stop teasing him. However, as Sasaki starts to show genuine interest in Miyano's manga addiction - and Miyano jumps on the occasion to have at least one acquintance he can talk to about his fave books - things slowly start to change. Oh, and the specific genre he reads? It's boys love!

While Miyano insists he just likes the writing style and the stories and he has no interest in men whatsoever, with the power of BL mangas Sasaki starts to realize that he actually has a crush on Miyano and that is why he wants to be around him so much. And as they get to spend more time together, Miyano also starts to question if he actually would be okay with dating a guy if it was Sasaki..

While the progress can be a bit slow, I like that plotpoints are not dragged out forever and eventually resolve. I like the relaxed athosmphere of the story, the focus on feelings, the introspective bits from the characters as they mull over certain conversations they just shared. The only reason I am not rating this a 10 is because while the dialogues concerning the relationship are great, the story has a weak spot in bringing in actual plot lines that aren't just your usual slice of lines scenes.

For example, I remember in one of the earlier chapter that the character mentioned several times an event (was it going to the movies or a cultural festival, I can't recall) and I got excited to see them there! Only for the next chapter start with a two sentence summary of: "oh yeah, we went there! it was great!" So happy for you..? And since the discussion of BL topics is always a bonding moment for Sasaki and Miyano I would have expected there to be a bit more details given, the way real people discuss their favorite movies. (Een if they made up fictional stories). But the discussions are often very vague and can feel like filler, with only some tropes getting mentioned. One thing that might put people off of the story is discussion of the seme/uke pairs (which has been a standard way to differentiate characters since the birth of BL) but eventually as the characters' relationship progresses they realize that it is silly to put people into such boxes as one word cannot exactly determine everything from your personality to your preferred position. It was a nice detail to add and made me appreciate how newer BL titles slowly but surely start to move away from the "fantasy BL tropes" towards real queer representation.

A BL manga that uses BL manga as a way to connect the characters. Interesting idea I guess.

Sasaki to Miyano is among the more slow paced shounen-ai. In this case, that’s not bad, as it gives the characters more time to feel real and less like a walking fanservice. Unlike the usual procedure, the pairing doesn’t get together and to business immediately. It even takes a while to show that this is, in fact, a BL title.

As usual with such manga, the main demographic is pretty much the only demographic, as if you don’t enjoy boy’s love, there isn’t much for you to enjoy here. ... But on the contrary to usual quality of BL work, this one isn’t offensively bad and I can see why someone would enjoy it. The characters aren’t walking cliché, the plot doesn’t feel forced, the interaction are likely cute to the intended spectators and the art doesn’t look like it was drawn by a meth addicts who thinks Slenderman is the paragon of human anatomy.

The least believable part is that the manga wants us to believe that someone who’s not into boys would want to read BL just because it’s fun. Because let’s face it, overwhelming majority of BL are complete trash and you definitely aren’t reading them for the plot, as popular that excuse is. Well, it probably didn't surprise anyone that the supposedly not gay protagonist might in fact be gay at least to some extent.

Overall, if you’re a fujoshi who doesn’t require explicit slash and is fine with some more sane content, go for it.

I know that this is very popular and for some reason most people are into this bs, but I'm still putting it to "not recommended". I love BL but it's merely one reason why I hate this:

The "top" and "bottom" (or Uke and Seme in Japanese) talk. I don't know why it's so popular, but it's actually extremely disrespectful to gay people. Most gays are switches, and so are girls. Feminine guys aren't the equivalent of a woman and won't therefore be the "bottom" of the relationship.
So damn annoying. When will y'all get this.

Even worse is when people label others whether they're a top or ... bottom just by the looks. That's very similar to guessing someone's sexuality. You can't tell by the looks. And if they haven't told you, you shouldn't put labels on them anyway.
It's one thing to see fans putting the top/bottom labels on characters for headcanons (even though it's dumb and I'm really hoping this trend will stop soon), but it's a completely different thing to have it in an official manga, that even has an anime adaptation. Very disappointing.

I could've actually given this 7 stars, bc apart from that, the story is cute...