Thank you so much to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this story!
This was such an adorable and cute story, I loved the art style so damn much and both the characters were amazing 🤩 I can’t wait to read more from this author

This was such a sweet manga, really enjoyed it. I really love mangas and they have some of the best stories and art!

This is was so amazing oh gosh. Usually these have some kind of homophobia in them but this was great from the start!!! Both of the characters were so so cute and they'd been pining after each other :') And I love sports romance so much!!! I definitely recommend this one!

5 Stars ( I received an e-arc from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review)

I loved this manga!!! It was a cute story about two best friends who have been playing baseball for years and now that the summer is finished, their final baseball season has ended. Yuta feels that Ritsu seems to be distancing himself from their normally close friendship. Yuta also has a mentor relationship with their coach which is cute and asks Yuta to come and help with training camp. This is where Yuta and Ritsu talk more about the distance between them which leads to Ritsu confessing to Yuta. He had thought Yuta had a crush on the coach so he didn't pursue Yuta and Yuta had thought that Ritsu was possibly dating someone else. Turns out Ritsu was attending driving school to be able drive Yuta as he is always in Coach's car. All this leads to the two of them hooking up and there is some mature scenes. But they are an adorable couple and start dating, while Yuta struggles to increase his studies as he wants to get into the same university as Ritsu. Loved it so much!

So cute!! I’ve read countless yaoi mangas, and this is has a similar plot to those that I’ve read before. Friends to lovers, acceptance, a light love story for young hearts. Very sweet!

Very cute and well drawn. The romance seemed like they were on equal footing, and they notably had interests and desires outside of each other. The art was interesting and conveyed the emotions of the story well.

This title is very sweet. The first half is very soft, and doesn't contain explicit scenes since it focuses on introducing the protagonists and the development of their story. The second half, on the other hand, is more erotic and explores the developement of their romantical relationship, which includes the physical aspect of it.

First we meet Yuta, our main protagonist who's about to graduate from high school. As always happens during the last year of japanese highschoolers, his club activities ended for him... so h had ot say goodbye to baseball.

Then we meet Ritsu, Yuta's best friend, who also belonged to the baseball team. After finishing the club activities, Ritsu became strangely distant with Yuta, he has no time to spend with him and is fully focused on university entrance exams. Yuta does not understand his attitude and a series of circumstances and misundertandings lead to a critical change on their relationship.

The plot as such is very simple, the author intends to explore what happens with the relationship of two boys who have been like nails and flesh for the last ten years when the relationship's dynamic drastically change. Jealousy, the fear of losing what they have when going from high school to university and leaving baseball behind, forces the two of them to consider what they really want from each other.

This is one of those titles that give us a 100% healthy relationship, without too many plot twists and any excessive dramas ... No, it is not lifechanging manga, but if what you are looking for is a beautiful BL not only artistically speaking (because it is undeniable that the drawing is stunning) but also argumentatively, this is a perfect option for you.

When researching the title in bakaupdates, I saw that it is a standalone volume and that it has no spinoffs of any kind, which partly upsets me because two of the secondary characters, Satoshi and Shima, are trully lovely and I would love to have a story about the two of them.

I absolutely LOOOOOOOOOOOVED the artwork to this one! There was something about it that felt so soft and delicate and sweet. Once again, is there anything new here in terms of content? Not really, but it's still easy to enjoy a thoughtful friends to lovers manga with beautiful pictures and enough story that drives you to keep reading.

3.5 stars.

The story and artstyle is very cute. The story was nothing new and there were some dialogues that happened out of nowhere. The pacing needs some work and I didn't see the whole point of Ritsu being too jealous over the coach when he didn't feel anything for Yuuta.

Overall, this was a cute read with a few unnecessary moments.

Trigger warnings: sexual content.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with the digital copy for an honest review.

Cute in places, but I never bought that Yuta and Ritsu were friends much less romantic partners. It is part of the plot that Ritsu's emotional distance is a new development, but without any flashbacks to the friends' past closeness, I couldn't get a feel for the friendship. I see a lot of reviews rejoicing in the consensual nature of their relationship, but while everything is consensual I was still a bit uncomfortable with how pushy Ritsu seemed when it came to sex. It seemed to me like there was a noticeable maturity/power differential in their relationship, and that Yuta seemed to go along with what Ritsu wanted without really considering his own feelings. After Ritsu confesses his love for Yuta, Yuta never even confesses back before suddenly they're dating! And Ritsu decided that they would live together without getting Yuta's opinion on the matter or the location... Lots of take-charge moments that rubbed me the wrong way.

The artwork is very beautiful and clean, though it was occasionally difficult to tell Yuta and Ritsu apart. The translation/lettering seemed weird in places, though I read an eARC so this aspect may be different in the final version. Sometimes I couldn't tell what was a speech bubble and what was a thought bubble.

I liked the baseball aspect and the theme of friendships changing or growing apart, and I thought the bonus chapter was cute. But overall, I didn't connect to the relationship between the characters or buy into the romance.

A fairly slow-paced slice-of-life type story about childhood friends realizing they like each other. It was decent, but it didn't really feel like it had anything new compared to the many other stories with the same basic story.

I received this manga from Netgalley/publisher in exchange of an honest review.

I was very excited about this one. I always love a good shounen ai/yaoi manga and I was eager to get this started... but I am sorry, it just wasn't for me. It took ages for it to take off and get anywhere. Mostly I just didn't see the attraction between the two characters. Masahino was just too stoic for me, and I couldn't get Mizuhara's obsession with Masahino. I didn't think it was love, more like they have been together so long (since childhood) that they kind of grew to each other and now they have to let go.
I saw more attraction between Mizuhara and the coach and was definitely shipping those despite knowing that Masahino and Mizuhara were the pair to be. :|

The art was pretty OK-ish.

So yeah, I tried and it definitely had elements that I really liked. Sadly, also enough stuff I wasn't a fan of. Thanks for letting me try this one. I will rate it 2 stars because of the potential and I loved the coach x Mizuhara.

RePlay is a touching and heartfelt story. I enjoyed the characters, the plot and the creator's gorgeous artstyle.

The pacing was very good, if a little slow at some points, but where it might fall short this manga makes up for it in complex characters that are flawed but no less likable. It's about passion really and you can tell a lot of passion went into the making of this delightful manga.

I would definitely recommend this manga if you're looking for something pure and sweet that will also tug at your heartstrings.

This manga’s design and illustrations are so good and mature. There isn’t something like bishonens to light up your mood. I haven’t read anything related to sports before because I am not a sporty person but this was a really good first experience! The story evolves around two friends since childhood that have always play baseball. However, as they grow old and their high school life is coming to and end, they find each other drifting apart. I enjoyed how this is such a coming of age story with struggles of college, professional decisions in your late teens and how the characters were developed.

At some point, I had my doubts about how the story was going to end and I am not sure if the author had planned it this way. One of the characters seems to have issues with his sexuality whereas the other seems to push the other into a Relationship. Even at the end, I felt how “finally” one of the main characters open up and embrace himself and his partner. I have the bitter taste in my mouth that this was more like “meh why not” than a explosion of emotions. I think this part should have been better developed for the sake of the story.

Be aware that, as always, there are sexual content on this story which, for obviously reasons, is explicit. By the way: THE COACH!

This was cute harmless fluff with a bit of nsfw content. Nothing too deep, but probably cute enough for a quick yaoi read.

Thanks to Diamond Book Distributors and NetGalley for providing an ARC!

Yuta and Ritsu are longtime friends, united by baseball, each navigating an uncertain transition from high school to university. Will their interests lead them to a future together or apart? Executed nicely, Tsukahara's illustration style is easy to follow. Our protagonists' narratives rely heavily on inner thoughts as opposed to dialogue, likely to allow for more emotional depth in the quicker timeline of a one-shot manga, which I found to be rather unique. Overall, I enjoyed this story despite the lack of a "stand out" element over other BL. Readers, be sure not to skip the hilarious bonus chapter (i.e., my favorite part)!

I couldn't connect with any character, and couldn't understand how anyone would be interested in someone as could as Ritsu, who seems to have been more expressive in the past but changed for no apparent reason. I liked the artwork and a couple of scenes, but the story itself didn't develop correctly for me, although it touched interesting topics such as friendship, college, and coming of age.

I've been reading a bunch of stand alone manga volumes recently, especially queer ones, and this one is so excellent. I think it does a great job of balancing character development (nothing moves too fast), which allows for the ache of their relationship to be ever present - even when the lead doesn't realize why. It's also sexy and romantic in a way I wasn't quite sure to except coming from TokyoPop - but I think I've been out of the game too long.

It's a welcome one-shot of queer romance. Well worth the read!

RePlay is a slow burn slice-of-life story of two high school boys who turn from friends into lovers while on the cusp of making decisions about life now that they are becoming adults. The artwork is clean, well done, and easy to follow.

Story: Serious Ritsu and easy-going Yuta have been friends since elementary school. The two paired up due to Yuta's love of pitching in baseball and needing a catcher. Now, about to graduate from high school, they have tough decisions to make. Ritsu knows he doesn't want to go further with the baseball and studies hard to get into a good university. Yuta, meanwhile, is starting to realize that pursuing baseball will mean he will have to go to a different school than Ritsu - something he's not ready to do. As they plan their future, but begin to recognize that everything they really want is already right in front of them - and they can make it happen together.

The relationship dynamics are nice here - consensual (for once) and with consideration of what a relationship would mean for the big picture of both their lives. They do take most of the book to figure it out but the ending does make sense for both of them in light of each's goals.

The story is very slow and most of it is figuring out that their friendship might be more - and being unsure of whether to take it further. There is no melodrama or big moments - just slice-of-life understated storytelling. The baseball aspects aren't really touched upon much since the focus is on each of the two main characters (though mostly through Yuta's POV).

In all, it was a bit slow for me and I can't say that I believed either character to be real. Perhaps the best way to describe this completed story line is that it is a lot of little teases leading up to the finale of finally taking the relationship physical. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

*4.5 stars

This was such an adorable story! I absolutely loved it!
The artwork was lovely and I love the trust and openness between these two characters. I especially liked that neither of them questioned their sexuality like characters in BL manga do sometimes.
I strongly recommend it!