I liked that this focused on older characters, we don't often get that in BL manga. Internalized homophobia is not a fun topic to tackle but this was handled pretty well.

It's always refreshing to read a BL title that focuses more on older adults finding love. DCMD completely hits that niche. If you're a fan of second chance romances, working through internalized homophobia and single parenthood, DCMD is for you. I haven't read the manga this was a sequel to but I did come away interested in it to learn more about this cast of characters.

Dieser Manga ist der zweite Teil einer Dilogie, kann jedoch auch unabhängig davon gelesen werden. Ich mochte den ersten Teil und insbesondere dessen Protagonisten Shouji, weshalb ich gerne auch die Geschichte seines Vaters Mita erfahren wollte, welche hier erzählt wird.

Mita muss seinen Sohn Shouji allein großziehen, erhält dabei jedoch Unterstützung von seinem Freund Hanao. Dieser empfindet für Mita weit mehr als Freundschaft, traut sich jedoch nicht, dies jemandem zu erzählen. Nach einem Ereignis, das Hanao zutiefst verunsichert, beschließt er Mita und Shouji zu verlassen - und kehrt erst 20 Jahre später zurück...

Insgesamt fand ich diesen Teil etwas schwächer. Ich mochte die Figuren und konnte Hanaos Unsicherheit gut nachvollziehen, aber während mir einige Szenen zu gehetzt und abgehackt erschienen, fühlten sich andere zu sehr in die Länge gezogen an. Auch war mir der Schluss etwas zu dramatisch und kurz. Mir hätte es besser gefallen, wenn es noch etwas emotionaler geworden wäre, gerne auch mit Shouji's Unterstützung, der mir für seine Rolle in der Geschichte etwas zu kurz kam.

Daher vergebe ich 3,5 Sterne.


In English:

This manga is the second part of a dilogy, but can also be read independently. I liked the first part and especially its protagonist Shouji, which is why I wanted to know the story of his father Mita, which is told here.

Mita has to raise his son Shouji alone, but receives support from his friend Hanao. Hanao feels far more than friendship for Mita, but does not dare to tell anyone. After an event that deeply unsettled Hanao, he decided to leave Mita and Shouji - and did not return until 20 years later ...

Overall, I found this part a little weaker. I liked the characters and understood Hanao's insecurity well, but while some scenes seemed too rushed and choppy, others felt too drawn out. The ending was also a bit too dramatic and short for me. I would have liked it better if it had gotten a little more emotional, also with Shouji's support, who missed out a bit for his role in the story.

Therefore I give 3.5 stars.

This book starts 20 years before Don't Call Me Dirty and ends a year after. So it spans 20+ years.
First off I found parts of it (especially thoughts and asides) difficult to read.
But the story, oh my, it made me sob. Really sob ugly tears. It's has interesting things to say about homophobia in the older generation in Japanese culture and how much of that is internalised.
I had a few issues towards the end of the book, with Mita's abrupt change of heart and sudden acceptance of his own feelings but overall I enjoyed this (once I stopped crying 😢 😭 😅)

*I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*


This is a sequel to Don't Call Me Dirty, featuring the older guys aka, the dads because even people older than 20 need romance in their lives! These gents are in their 50s. It is such a bummer to read about how they lost so much time together, but considering the times and the hate the LGBTQA+ community still receives today, it feels realistic. 

I really liked this one and its message on how we should be ourselves and love who we love without care for the rest of the world. It is a very sweet book that gave me all the feels, but sometimes it felt like it dragged.

I really thought for most of this that this was some unrequited love bull and I'm so glad I was wrong! :'D This was so much cuter than the first volume in my opinion. This was a sort of second chance romance and ahh I loved it!

The ARC was impossible to read. Four pages were on each page and you cannot zoom in Adobe Digital Editions. So I couldn't read this ARC. Since I have to rate it in order to send in my review, I give it 1 star.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to read this thanks to the quality of an ARC, but I am pretty sure I'd enjoy it. Don't Call Me Daddy is a sequel to Don't Call me Dirty, which I enjoyed very much. It doesn't follow same characters but it still takes place in the same area.

One of the reasons I'd definitely recommend this sequel is age of the MC's. They are both in their fifties which is something not so common in BL manga. Gorou Kanbe has a nice, clean artstyle which definitely pleases the eye. Author also didn't include any physical sexual scenes in the first book, so I am not expecting them in second one either. Romance was very cute and realistic and I can't wait to try more of author's work.

Definitely recommended!

I'm not sure I will purchase this title for my library's teen manga collection. There's no explicit sex, but it's just a little too far over the line for me to feel comfortable in my pretty conservative town to purchase it. I will suggest it for the adult graphic novels collection though. I didn't realize going in that it was a spin-off of another series, but thankfully it didn't matter. I enjoyed that it was a romance between two older men, as that's simply something I don't see too often. I liked what I could see of the art, though as many other reviewers noted, this review copy left much to be desired (thankfully my screen is so large I as able to read most of it, though it certainly wasn't easy). Assuming the final product is much higher quality art, I feel pretty confident suggesting this title.

Tokyopop seems to have a bit of a theme with their recent BL releases: it's okay to be who you are and love who you love. I can totally get behind that, and as an added bonus, this volume is a story about older adults - when the actual romance happens, they're in their fifties. That won't work for everyone, certainly, but it's a nice change from the romance novel norm, and also important to the mindset of Hanao, who has convinced himself that being gay is, if not "wrong" than at least "not normal." There's definitely more of him coming to accept himself and his right to be happy than of the actual romance, but this is still a nice change of pace for those looking for BL that's off the beaten path.


Full review eventually appearing on ANN.

(Like many, the quality of the ARC file made this incredibly hard to read and enjoy... It's coming from a publisher so it shouldn't feel like it's illegal scanned subs on a virus riddled manga website!! But maybe all those years of reading those prepared me for this moment.)

Don't Call Me Daddy is a spin-off from Gorou Kanbe's other manga, Don't Call Me Dirty (which, for the record, I have not read). Daddy is a cute, slow-burnish story that spans a long period of time. It has falling for your childhood best friend, raising a kid together, angst and then 20 years later, reconciling and finally actually getting together. This was fun and adorable but nothing spectacular for me. if you want to read something easy and light and a lil BL tropey that makes you smile and feel good, this might be it.

This second-chance romance manga is the spin-off story I've asked the universe for after I finished Don't Call Me Dirty last year and OH MY GOD it was Perfect! I was initially put off by the weird layout of the ARC's DRM format, but I remembered how much I enjoyed the first book so I powered through. After a few pages, I forgot about how much I wished for a better layout bec the story was so gripping (more compelling than the first book, I'd say) and the tropes felt like they were TAILORED to me personally. LOL
•
There are two timelines in this story, beginning with scenes set in the past, back when Shouji was still a child; and by the second act, we are taken 20 years later, to present events that coincide with events in Shouji's story. The stakes are not v high in this, but the drama and plot is still v rich, mostly bec Kaji is super fenced in with his feelings, and Mita is so bad at communicating in general. LOL.

I loved that they were in their 50s but are sort of emotionally stunted(?). For Kaji it was bec he was hiding secrets, and for Mita, well, he was mostly a mess of thoughts and feelings to begin with - but he makes up for it really good. It all gets sorted out (after a couple of false starts bec can this two just talk like normal adults?? LOL) and when it does, the broody feel of the story is lightened and made more fun. :)

Other highlights for me are Shouji and Kaji's conversation at the hospital bec it provided some closure for issues I didn't even notice needed it; the ~kilig when Mita asks Kaji to look at the moon *swoons*; and the closed-door sex towards the end that really puts the cherry on top of this amazing cake! I also love how it handled 'heavy' issues on sexuality, with care and without being preachy.

I highly recommend this, and please read the first book first! You'll appreciate all of Kaji X Mita when you already know the person Shouji becomes bec of his unique upbringing.

•
*The eARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley for free in exchange for an honest review. Thank you.⁣

** I WAS GIVEN THIS BOOK FOR MY READING PLEASURE **
Copy received through Netgalley

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Don't Call Me Daddy, by Gorou Kanbe
★★★★☆
176 Pages


Don't Call Me Daddy is a spin-off from their story Don't Call Me Dirty, which I utterly adored. “Daddy” picks up before, during and after “Dirty”, but I read it this time on its own, and then I'll be following up with a re-read of “Dirty” just because I can.

So, I remember Shouji's father as a kind of distant, drunk, almost-absent father from “Dirty” and I've always been really intrigued to find out where that came from and why it happened. If he'd always been that way, I'm sure Shouji wouldn't be quite so caring and want his approval so much. This story tells me exactly what I wanted to know. I LOVED seeing his father – Mita – as a young, doting, confused, over-worked, chaotic father. I loved that he spent time with Shouji, that he had that family unit with Mita's childhood friend Hanao. I also really loved the whole mini-story of Shouji being in love with his school friend. That was adorable. In fact, EVERY instance of baby-Shouji was adorable.

I actually really loved Mita as a character, this time around. I didn't bond well with Hanao, probably because I just didn't get his behaviour. I know it's realistic and why he was worried, but I never really understood his motivation, or got the sense he was protecting Shouji by leaving. It felt like he was running from who he was, and the potential end of his friendship with Mita, if he found out. Which, actually, was pretty stupid because he ended up losing that friendship by walking away. He didn't bother to keep in touch, which was gutting.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. I had a HUGE issue with the formatting and being able to read the text, which is why I can't give it the full 5* rating, but I've got “Dirty” on my paperback wish-list and can now safely add “Daddy” without worrying it wouldn't be as good. Because it is. And now I'll be keeping an eye out for more of Kanbe's work.

Can we please get "Don't Call Me Doctor" next? I'd love to read more about Haba, the cheeky doctor who was so much fun.

* NOTE
While I would LOVE to give it a solid 5* rating, I had a problem with the formatting. In fact, it took me an hour to find a format and app that would read the dash thing. Unfortunately, the file is acsm – which means you have to open it in Adobe. I can't read on my laptop, so I had to convert to Mobi (and PDF and Epub) just to get it onto my Kindle.
No matter what format I tried, everything came out with the image only 50-60% of the page. I was forced to zoom-in on *every* page and some panels had so much text or were so small that it was impossible to read them. So, there are pieces I missed and I hate that, but I think I got about 80% of the story without it.

This was good, I enjoy how this volume and it's companion have been stories about the emotional relationships and the characters. Not just the physical relationship, like most BL manga.

E-arc provided by Netgalley in exchange for honest review.

The first things I look for in BL manga is a adorableness and miscommunication. Those are my favorite tropes in manga and DCMD did both of these very well. Hanao has helped Ryuuji raise his son, Shouji, but Hanao thinks he is causing harm to the father and son's reputations by sticking around. And perhaps to himself too, by ignoring his feeling for Ryuuji. The story takes place over several years and I loved that the main characters were older, something we don't get a lot of in BL manga. The art style is not my favorite, but overall this was a fairly innocent long-term romance that I enjoyed reading.

The review copy was very difficult to read but given those constraints this seemed like a nice story of what love means, how to define family, and how to come to terms with your own sexuality. Not spectacular, but definetly worth a read.

As with many others, I found this electronic version unreadable due to the format. Shame, because I liked the idea of seeing a romance between two older men, with responsibilities complicating their love story. I also wasn't aware this was more of a sequel, less of a standalone, as I haven't read the previous volume. That made it difficult to understand the characters in the few pages I was able to force myself through (seriously, the text is too fuzzy to make out).

Don't Call Me Daddy is quite a solid BL manga and the best part is that our main characters are over fifty most of the story. Hardly ever do we have BL manga with older characters, so this was refreshing! This is a continuation or more like a spin-off to Don't Call Me Dirty, but now the story revolves around Shouji's dad Ryuuji and his friend Hanao. Ryuuji became a single dad and his best friend Hanao helped the two, but was in love with Ryuuji too. The setting became too heavy to handle and Hanao was afraid his feelings showed, so he decided to leave in order to protect Ryuuji and Shouji. Now 20 years later the old friends meet again and feelings grow. I really love stories that heal old wounds and promise a better tomorrow. This manga is very heartwarming, albeit the ending is too fast for me, I wanted to relish it more.

The art looks somewhat stiff, Kanbe isn't at best when drawing older characters. Otherwise to art work is OK, nothing miraculous, but OK. I'm glad we get BL like this in English, since it's different. The language is fluent and all in all this works out well, which is great!

As other reviewers have mentioned this copy was difficult to read in its entirety due to the text and artwork being blurry. From what I did catch, this was a nice companion to Don’t Call Me Dirty and helped in terms of understanding Shouji’s struggles with his sexuality. I also enjoyed reading about the evolution of Mita and Hanao’s relationship.

Lovely story about two friends who become lovers. The transition between friends and lovers isn't easy, especially when they haven't seen each other for so long. Bottled up emotions are unleashed at once.