Lyn Forester

When I find a book so similar to a specific anime/manga genre I’ve (not so) secretly enjoyed for years, I find myself in the need of releasing the monster locked in the closet called Otaku(1) Xia Xia because only she can explain the enthusiasm or the high rating around a story that might sound quite alarming to praise.

*opens closet door* Take it away, weirdo!





Otaku Xia Xia: On it!

Here’s to all my fujoshi(2) sisters and fudanshi(3) brothers, here’s to the otakus, closeted and out of the closet alike. Rejoice! because the West is finally beginning to get it and is crying “All aboard the anime/manga hype train”.


You to Me may not be the most original pea in the pod compared to other genre stories, but I gobbled up the smorgasbord of yaoi cliches/tropes like a parrot in a chocolate fountain. NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!



And not just any cliches/tropes, but the tropes of yaoi & BL. RAWWR!

This book used almost every single cliche imaginable and I loved it.
Let’s start with the character stereotypes:
1.The Tsundere= characters that are stuck-up on the outside but loving on the inside. Often, tsunderes are embarrassed by or don't know what to do with their romantic feelings. They usually hide their feelings until the last moment. They are also completely oblivious of their own feelings or if someone has feelings for them.

Say hello to Sota Iso, our MC and a tsundere to the core.


He’s funny, he’s cute, he has a smart mouth and he’s the love interest of two characters. From the moment he appears you know he is an uke (4), a childish, pretty and blushy stereotype with a cute little bod. Several overused cliches form Sota’s background: he is from a single parent family, he is an overeater, he is usually late for school, and he has that childhood friend who always has his back (and is secretly in love with him). And the cherry on top, the trope of all tropes, he has an animal characteristic, in this case a tail. There is a genre called nekomimi - where a fictional character has cat ears on an otherwise human body, and possibly other feline characteristics such as a tail. Most of the tailed characters in this book have cat tails. Our boy has a petite fawn tail which makes him even cuter, and more special. He also has light colored hair, another trope.


2. The Kuudere - a person who is calm and composed on the outside. They are the ones who are serious and always in charge of a situation. They never panic and are who everyone else turns to in a crisis.
Hello Masa Ito, Sota’s best friend who is the perfect example of a kuudere type.


Masa is the rock that grounds Sota, the shield that protects him and the one that comes up with the best way to get out of a tight spot. Also, you know Masa is a seme (5) from the first moment you read about him. He is almost one head taller than the uke (yes this is a trope), has a nicely build up bod and is dynamite in bed, even if he was a virgin when Sota and Masa first made love. He is secretly very smart and has black hair (a cliché)
And he has horns which makes him super alpha male in the fantasy anime genre.

3. How do you make things more interesting in a manga or anime especially if it's a yaoi? You release the yandere and you let him loose. Inside of a yandere is where the crazy lies. There are generally two types of yanderes, obsessive and possessive. When a yandere is built on its highest potential, things get bloody and sick. The Obsessives will kill anyone and everyone who stands in the way of them having their “true loves.” Possessives will go one step further and even kill the ones they love so that they won't end up with anyone else.
As anime stereotypes go, the yandere is my personal favorite character. I love to see them out of their mind with obsessive and possessive love for the MC, I love to see them destroy everything in their path to have the object of their sick love, even if it’s rape or murder.

Meet our yandere, Ken Jung. Yeah, baby!


Ken is the best athlete, the rich, handsome guy that every girl wants and every boy wants to be like. He has an expensive car, blonde hair (another trope) and he is absolutely obsessed with the MC, pushing things sometimes on the verge of rape.
As a yandere, Ken was a mellow one up to like 96% of the book. When I identified the character type in the first pages, I was soooooo pumped! Imagine my disappointment when I saw he was not bringing out the crazy that such a character is capable of to its full potential. And then, at 96%, our boy Ken delivered and it was like:

BOOMSHAKALAKA!!

The highschool setting in the book, the Samhain festival at the end, the characters meeting and spending time at the arcade and at the coffee shop were also clichés used most often in anime and manga.
The most original parts of this story were the palate thingy and the separation in categories between horned people and tailed people. You don’t get much of an explanation as to why things are like that but you never do get much explanation in an anime or a manga either
So just take it as it is, without spending too much time to question why.

From a writing perspective I loved how funny Sota was. The jokes were smart, the flow was smooth and I connected with both Sota and Masa.

Overall 4.2.
This book delivered up to my expectations and I enjoyed it very much.

Of course I bought the next book in the series, because Mr. Yoshida, Sota’s counselor, is in that one. That’s another type of tsundere (the cold, indifferent one, not interesting in finding a loved one, but slowly broken by one relentless seme), different than Sota, and I will have soooo much fun with him.


(1)Otaku = hardcore anime fan
(2) fujoshi= Girls who enjoy yaoi (a genre in Japan that contains sexual and/or romantic relations between two men)
(3) fudanshi= Boys who enjoy yaoi
(4) uke = bottom
(5) seme = top
BL(5) = Boy's Love

*Free exchange for an honest review for MMRG under the DBML Program*… (mehr)

WHERE’S MY YANDERE?



First part was just what the doctor ordered and it was a solid 4 stars. Second part was 150 pages too long and I skimmed to the end and dropped the book to 2 stars. So I’m making an average.
I’ve lost interest when the psycho stalker turned out to be the same type of yandere that had triggered countless DNFs from me while reading yaoi manga. I wanted the Ken Jung type of yandere who is passionately obsessed with the MC, but I got the revenge psycho with yandere tendencies displayed towards someone else other than the MC . It’s not the book, it’s me.

I appreciate how Lyn Forester plays with the manga/.anime archetypes. She gets them. In the first book we’ve seen one type of tsundere in Sota Iso, now we are seeing a different type in Toru. You might think at times he is a childish imbecile but that’s a characteristic for the tsundere. They can’t see love even if it hits them in the face.

Ryuu was cute, but then again all deredere archetypes are cute. They are the most cheerful, hyper, and loving of the “-dere” and are constantly smothering their love interests with affection. What’s not to love?

Kudos to the book for triggering existential questions in me and my friends: would we like a tail or would we like horns?
I think I’ll go for a pair of horns. A goat inspired a very good use for a pair of long horns.



Later edit: removed rating. It's not the book's fault I was looking for something else.… (mehr)