*~~*ARC kindly provided to me for an honest review *~~*

- Review to come

Review originally posted on my blog with added content on Mikku-chan / A world full of words

Sato is a businessman with a love for manga and robots. Aoi is a voice actor in manga drama. The two meet on New Years, and while both feel a spark, Aoi is not looking for a relationship, so the two strike up a friendship that proves difficult to maintain when both want more.

If you're looking for sweet romance without a lot of drama, then you will like this. The storyline bordered on boring, but the characters and their lives and cultures were so different from what I usually read that it kept me interested. Aoi's job seems really interesting and I would have like to hear more about that. Sato is just a sweet character through and through.

Um, I have never heard of ‘gay day’ at Tokyo Disney 🤔

Anyway. This book was a bit disappointing in some ways but mostly I guess I just didn’t like Aoi much. My first impression wasn’t a good one and it kinda stuck. He came across as snobby and bit like a prick.

And Sato’s voice bored me. He’s timid, nerdy and naive. Not bad traits but it somehow didn’t make him endearing rather than annoying.

As friends? They had no chemistry, no connection (in my eyes).

I found it a little hard to believe Sato would keep running after Aoi for some reason. The many times they had to discuss this “it’s not a date - No, we are not dating” made them seem even more childish.

I also found the storytelling mediocre, no offense, but there was no flow and the Japan vibe was pretty off. That’s one reason I’m not confident I could pull off a story believably 'Japanese'. It’s hard. My expectations might be high. Truthfully, I appreciate the author’s effort though.

Still, I didn’t connect with the guys so their story left me cold.

Their journey from friends to more was a tad boring to be honest. There was no actual development, nothing story wise that kept me wanting to turn the pages 😞 I was missing a certain chemistry... something that makes a romance sparkle, interesting and fun. Everything felt a little random.

I’m sorry if I sound like I’m totally bashing the author or hate on their story 😔 it just didn’t work for me and I think it could have profited from a little tweaking here and there.

Many thanks to Netgalley for providing a free copy to read and review.

So this was partially a case of missed expectations by a long shot. I went into this misguidedly thinking I had found a partially own voices gay asian romance novel by an asian author. I was wrong on that count which isnt the books fault more fault of my not researching properly before requesting. It only dampened my desire to continue slightly.

That aside I did not enjoy this book. I did not enjoy how Sato and Aoi's relationship developed at all. And found at times Aoi to be gaslighting Sato especially with that "friendship kiss". This book mainly felt as though it was just one weird happenstance after another and just culturally did not feel like Japan to me.

Sato's sister agreeing to go on a fake date and everything from the broken leg in the shower just felt off. Like there was a disconnect in the story itself. Also as a gundam fan I have to say Sunrise would never give up the rights to another smaller company for even a couple seasons. So while Sato working for his favorite animes studio made sense if you are already using Gundam you might as well just use Sunrise as the studio.

Even from the perspective of light fluff this didnt work for me. The issue with Aoi's parents felt terribly flat and wasnt developed well at all. Maybe if it had been longer but overall this book and I did not jive which is unfortunate