I am not what you would call a yaoi fan. I have only seen about four or five yaois total, most of them in the past few months as I have become too depressed and tired in my real life to tolerate darker subject material in my shows. After exhausting my better shoujo options (which get quite stale after a while) someone suggested I try the turbulent world of yaoi.
Three seasons of Junjou Romantica, two eras of Ai no Kusabi, Fake OVA, Kaze to Ki no Uta Sanctus: Sei Naru Kana OVA, Koisuru Boukun, and the entire Ai no Kusabi light novel series later, here I am, watching the OVAs for Junjou Romantica. Despite my relative lack of yaoi experience other than the list detailed above, I think I can safely say that I would know what a good example of yaoi looks like-- and this is it. It has the easily definable seme and uke, strange power dynamics and age differences, a little bit of misplaced homophobia from gay people towards gay people or themselves in a very unrealistic manner, and the fact that literally every single male character is gay.
That being said, I strangely enjoyed this franchise. However, that did not carry over to these OVAs. I honestly found myself bored throughout them. I would've preferred it to be all about one couple, in honesty. By switching through them, they really made a mess of things because of how little time there was to actually develop anything.
A lot of other things were lacking for me as well. The art seemed sloppy and somewhat dead at times, and the voice actors weren't all that great this time around either (other than Misaki's... that was fine). The characters didn't really have any motivation other than to be hot gay guys getting it on, pretty much.
I didn't really enjoy this, and despite watching it literally a few minutes ago, I can barely remember what the plot was.
I would recommend this if you: adore 'classic' yaoi, love heternormative gay stuff, like seme and uke dynamics, liked the first three seasons of this show (or even just one season is enough, tbh)
I would NOT recommend this if you: like character development, like real plot, like actual gay relationships instead of two people with dicks where one person acts like a total forceful alpha male while the other is a feminine submissive
Have a great day everyone!
