This book happens at a slower pace than most manga, so if you're buckling up for a ride, you might want to relax and be prepared to smell the roses. Basically his book is a slow progression of a teen boy trying to figure out who he is as a person, what his sexual identity might be while trying being a decent friend to someone who has come out as gay.

I'm always a little leery of titles that are marketed as BL, simply because I never know how much sexual content they're going to contain and I can't get away with much in my teen collection. Thankfully, Koimonogatari (not to be confused with the Monogatari series volume of the same name) has no sexual content in the first volume and honestly very little romance. This first volume focuses mostly on the friendship between a gay high schooler and his straight friend and it's actually pretty darn refreshing!

I really enjoyed this so far. The characters were likable and I felt like we slowly were learning about Yoshinaga along with Hasegawa. the art style was nice but the format from netgalley wasn't great and a lot of the smaller writing was impossible to read.

Koimonogatari is a slow exploration of two boys’ perspectives, Yuji and Yamato’s, on love. Yuji is learning what it means to have friends or find out you have friends in the LGBTQ community. He wants his friends to be happy and he does what he can to let them know he supports them. Yamato is struggling with his feelings for his straight friend, telling his best that he’s gay, and learning that Yuji knows. He thought he was alone and that if his orientation was ever discovered he would be ridiculed. That this didn’t happen, threw him.

The book has a great flow with natural point of view changes. The development of the characters and rising anxieties is, mostly, well done. There were a few times where I didn’t believe the panel showed enough anxiety, but I wonder too if that was on purpose. If you are trying to hide bits yourself, you would also try and hide emotions linked to those secrets.

There was another part of this book I thought was brilliant. Basically, and I’m paraphrasing a quote from Yuji, ‘we don’t have to know everything to be friends, we just have to be there’. I thought that was the crux of who he was as a character as well as what the book wants the reader to know. Friends, no matter their gender/sex/orientation, don’t need to know every little secret or detail about their other friends, they just need to be there when someone needs them. Yuji supports others so much, though, that he forgets to take care of himself, resulting in the perfection that is the last panel. This book shows both the necessity of doing everything you can to support others while also showing what happens if you don’t have support yourself. It truly is okay to be selfish every once in a while.

Koimonogatari draws the reader in because it is a soft, lazy read about teenage boys navigating relationships. It’s not a fast-paced romance, but an exploration about what love means and can turn into for different people. I would recommend this to anyone who likes LGBTQ and school life manga.

Gentle story of budding friendship between a gay teen and his straight classmate which offers each of them a new perspective on the various relationships in their lives. Quiet Hasegawa's keen observations reveals to him that his classmate Yoshinaga has a crush on one of his best friend who is straight.. Hasegawa confronts Yoshinga but says he won't out him as long as he doesn't "attack" his friend. From there, we watch the boys interact with each other and intermingle their sets of friends as the two become confidants. This book is an honest exploration of what it means to be a male in Japan generally, and gay specifically. Note - this is not for your stereotypical manga fan looking for the fast changing plot of many shonen and shojo titles. It is mostly characters hanging out together while making spoken, and unspoken, observations about each other. But for readers interested in the interior life of Japanese high school boys, this quiet volume is the ticket.

I couldn't engage with the story and didn't find it interesting or finish it, no matter how much I pushed myself; I liked the art, though.

This was a story I was really looking forward to reading but I couldn't make out a lot of things. The digital resolution wasn't good. However the parts I could read was good.

I was attracted by the cover art first and the summary of the plot second. Unfortunately, the beautiful art was not enough to keep me engaged with the storyline. The tone of this manga, at least in volume one, was very slow, subdued with the faintest beats of emotional tension. I wished that I had a couple more volumes in this series to binge read at once to see if the story picks up on further volumes, but just by going how indifferent I felt after finishing the first volume I am not compelled to follow-up with this story.

I do think that this manga has its readers, especially those who are tired of the melodramatic, over-the-topic manga. This may be the manga for them if they want a quiet and realistic unfolding of friendship and queer stories.

This was super cute. It deals with friendships and how dose one deal with if on if their frends is gay. How in this case how they become closer and really good friends.
There was many sence that just melts your heart I found myself gushing alot. The only problem I had was the story was too short.
The one criticism I have is that the art two of the male character where similar that I had a bit of trouble telling the two apart.
I will be wanting to read more from this author.

I am usually sucker for a good BL manga, especially set in high school. Tha's why I had such high hopes for Koimonogatari. I must say I am mostly... confused. I think the biggest problem was formatting of the ARC, that was unreadable in the lot of places and it made whole experience very very unpleasant. I am not the only reviewer who had such problems, which is a shame.

Story is about a young high schooler who finds out that one of his closest friends is gay and is in love with their mutual friend who is very oblivious to the fact. Very interesting concept, right? From what I recognized, manga focuses on self-discovery, friendships and growing as a person. Pace is quite slow, so I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who likes their fast-paced stories. It also felt kind of monotone from time to time.

I am pretty sure I'd have better experience if formatting was better but I can't really say if I liked art of Tagura or not. In the end, if you get chance to read physical manga, try it. It's not the best BL out there but it's not definitely the worst.

Hasegawa Yuji accidentally discovery that his classmate Yoshinaga Yamato is gay. Seeing Yoshinaga in a new perspective, Yuji doesn't want to judge without knowing the boy. But he ends up empathizing with Yoshinaga when he realizes that he likes his best friend who is arguably straight.

Even though he tells himself he shouldn't get involved, the opportunity arises for the two to be friends and Yuji begins to care more than he should about his friend's feelings.

I really liked both Yuji and Yamato, they turned out to be quite remarkable characters and I liked the way their friendship grows over reading. It is also nice to follow the different views of each one of them in each chapter.

Despite having some problems with how similar the characters are, not knowing who was who in some scenes. The story itself is very interesting and I liked the way it evolves in this first volume. I am very curious as to what will happen next.

Thank you to NetGalley and TokyoPop for providing me an advanced reader copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

This is primarily a story about self-discovery, as narrated by Yuji and his closeted gay classmate Yamato. At the beginning of the book, Yuji has some backward ideas about how Yamato being gay may influence his behavior. However, he eventually becomes more open-minded as both boys spend more time together. Personally, I don't like seeing homophobic mindsets in stories that aren't specifically discussing oppression, but I understand how the writer might have been compelled to display and disprove some common misconceptions about how gay men think and behave.

Unfortunately, this was somewhat derailed with the introduction of an older gay teenager who essentially assaults Yamato and plays it off as a joke. The inclusion of that event was very jarring and definitely soured my enjoyment of this book. While harassment from older people is something I and other gay friends have had experience with, I don't feel it's a wise idea to put into young teenagers heads that the first fellow gay person they meet will inevitably try to assault them. Older people taking advantage of children who lack an adequate support network and understanding of healthy boundaries is a complex and traumatizing issue in our community, and discussion of it needs to be nuanced and not played off as a joke, even in a fictional setting.

Aside from that event, the aspect of this story I appreciated most was that Yuji and Yamato are both written as narrators. Most stories I've read in which one character is learning to understand someone different from them typically don't include perspective changes. This often leads the protagonist's outsider perspective to inadvertently other the individual and community their increase in understanding is focused on. While this book is not perfect, I did enjoy seeing both boys' thinking displayed equally. Hopefully more narratives with similar intent will continue to utilize this pattern.

This manga is very sweet and realistic. I enjoyed the dynamic and the support of the friend group. The story did develop a little bit too slowly for me and I couldn't really connect to the characters. I would still recommend this to anyone who wants to read a soft and slow burn romantic story with strong friendships at its core.

Koimonogatari: Love Stories, Vol 1 (2020/05/18)
Rating 2/5 Stars
Disclaimer: Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy to review.

This was a cute slow burn Manga to read. I really enjoyed the writing style and the art design. Although this was a love story between Yamato and Yuji, I really appreciated the slow burn and build up we got to see for the characters as their relationship blossomed. We also got to see Yamato discover new friendships while also failing for Yuji which was really interesting. Unfortunately, I had a hard time connecting with the characters and this isn't an all-time favourite manga for me.

Thank you to the publisher for giving me a free copy :D

Gotta be honest this was a pretty standard manga. I wasn't mindblown and the bonding between the maincharacters of in one volume was in my opinion a bit too fast.

The art style was good but also pretty basic. I do hope for this to be more diverse in the future but for now it was pretty bland.

Well, this was a bummer.

I’ve been catching up on manga series lately, I thought this would be an interesting story to follow. The cover looked beautiful and I got carried away by the art style and the synopsis.

Unfortunately, this didn’t live up to my expectations. I had several problems, which I’ll list down below:

-Slooooooooow pace – you either love it or hate it. I’m on the later, and every single chapter I was thinking “when is this gonna end?” which is never a feeling you want to experience as a reader.
-There’s only three expressions on the characters: blushed, smiling or serious. I kind of get that the story doesn’t have any ‘chibi’ or dramatically expressions, but I think that if your character feels something, their face and their body language should tell it. That’s the beauty of manga: to say a lot without words.
-They all look alike! – But that’s probably due to the previous point. Also, all characters’ personalities are so dull, you can’t tell who is who. Even the female characters feel just the same as the males.
-I couldn’t connect with the story nor with any of our protagonists – I am a queer woman, so I know the struggles of being part of the LGBTQ+ community, but this was so poorly portrayed, I almost feel sorry for the people that think this is pro-rights.

I’m sure I won’t be reading the next volumes, which is a shame because the premise of this story seemed rather entertaining. But, to be honest, the story-telling wasn’t my favorite.

Last but not least, the format of the e-book copy was so weird, I struggled to read every single page.

I was just going to read chapter 1 and leave the rest for some other day since it's late but then I just couldn't stop reading it!

It's a very heartwarming story of friendship and self-discovery and I just really enjoyed it, but to be honest I'm not too interested in continuing the series right now (I might change my mind later though).

This manga certainly has potential. I like the characters and I'd be interested to see how the story progresses. The format was a little cluttered and the quality made it difficult to see some of the text. Going forward, I would hope the text at least would be made more clear.

Any time anyone from the USA reads any manga you have to keep in mind that Japanese society is REALLY not ok with anything that makes people "different." This, sadly still very much includes LGBT+ people. So in that way, this story is quite Japanese, because in this day and age, it's really not a big deal for teenagers to announce their sexuality and be open about it. Trust me, I work with teens, they are OPEN about it.
Not so in Japan.
So, this is a story in which Hasegaway, a regular teen who is kind of homophobic accidentally finds out his classmate Yoshinaga is gay, and possibly also in love with Hasegawa's best friend. Hasegawa is totally grossed out at first, but then, when he and Yoshinaga end up in the same study group and they get to know each other, Hasegawa's perceptions begin to change, and he starts realizing that not only is Yoshinaga a truly good person, he also sees that they are both very much alike in their approaches to life, and love.

This is a solid 4 stars manga for me. I've read so much BL in my life, this was a breath of fresh air.

The name might say Love Stories, but this volume was centered in developing the friendship between the characters. While the relationship between Yamato and Yuiji is the main focus, and the one I believe will become romantic in the future, we also see the way Yamato deals with his existing and new friendships.
I like how the LGTBQ+ theme is being handled so far, although I'm not a fan of Sakura and his steryotype. Otherwise, I'm liking the portrayal of internalized homophobia and the issues Yamato deals with during these first chapters. It is mentioned during the story that he overthinks this, but it is something I felt I could relate as someone who figured out their queerness in high school.

The art was great, it fits with the genre and vibe of the story. I love seeing the soft gazes, blooming flowers in the background, it makes the story seem more pure and innocent even though it's dealing with a theme that can become even more serious.

Now I will be looking forward to the next volume so I can see how the story develops.