I thought the premise of this book would be cute. A country boy moving to Tokyo, only to live next door to an annoying city boy. However, Takara (the city boy) did things to Kyouhei that were questionable at best and deeply problematic at worst. I consider this to be a romance heavy on reluctance and even dubious consent. This is not for me.

The art was beautiful, the story was not.

Cute and very very simple. The art work was beautiful but the story overall was very ehh. Again it was a cute but simple story.

Gracias Netgalley por el envío de una copia avanzada a cambio de una reseña honesta.

Este manga es bastante entretenido y bueno. Sin embargo, en ocasiones me resultó problemática la invasión de privacidad que ejercía uno de los personajes al protagonista. Me pareció que se podía abordar de otra manera el querer que la interacción entre ambos personajes sea rápida y espontánea sin recurrir al acoso.

Me parecía una historia con mucho potencial pero eso me llevó un gran disgusto.

While the prospect of a a person new to the city and someone that grew there togather is interesting, I thought it lacked something to them. I coulnd't quite understand why suddenly Takara wanted something Kyouhei (apart from needing help crushing bugs lol). And yeah, they were cute, but that's it.
I anjoyed the manga overall! It's fun and cute!

This had the potential to be super sweet, but I just couldn't get over the fact that poor Kyouhei is sexually assaulted (more than once) and doesn't even realize it. Even worse when a past event comes to light.
I'm giving it two stars just because it really does have some very sweet scenes and the art is nice enough that I'm sure it will popular, but this book just did not agree much with me.

Thanks to NetGalley and TOKYOPOP, LOVE x LOVE for the early read!

Just finished it and I was quite happy with it. Some serious stuff happens and it's not for kids because it's pretty graphic. The mc was accidentally roofied, which is seriously bad. This is definitely a dislike to love romance with lots of spice. Lots of strong adult themes going on. All in all I liked it.

I received a free ARC of this manga in exchange for an honest review.

I'm Looking for Serious Love! is an ADULT manga (18+). I had no idea until... That being said, I did enjoy the story. There were parts that might be considered triggering to some though so be careful. Even still, I am hoping that this isn't the end of the story and that we get to see more of this relationship develop!

I really need to read descriptions and pay attention to cover art in more detail. What I thought was going to be a cute boy romance was much much steamier. I don't mind books with steamy sex, but I need to prepared for what I am getting into. I was not prepared. That was completely my fault.

That being said, it was overall a good book that I had an entertaining time reading. This doesn't have a volume number attached with it so I assume it is a one shot story between a boy from the country and a boy from the city who start off on the wrong foot but soon grow to be drawn together and eventually love each other.

Could have done with a little more plot and the story seems to move awfully fast, but overall the relationship between Kyouhei and Takara is charismatic and the two compliment each other well.

Do not read if you are not into books with sex. I would highly recommend this book to the readers who do enjoy content such as this.

This manga was extremely enjoyable BL with great tropes that I know many readers like myself love. One thing that could have been better is the character development and a more clear elaboration on the mc's childhood friend!

Thank you for approving me to read this!

I had some mixed feelings about this manga. There are some cute moments and Kyouhei’s granny is definitely the star of the show and is such a sweetheart, but there’s some really problematic content as well. There are multiple scenes in this book that are essentially sexual harassment and sexual assault. However, the main character is too nice or too traumatized to say anything. He seems very hesitant to engage in the sexual activities and there’s a lot of lack of consent in this manga. Takara does seem to want to be a good boyfriend to Kyouhei, but his actions are quite problematic when it comes to sex. His fear of bugs is hilarious and works well with Kyouhei’s countryside upbringing where there’s lots of bugs. Overall, this is a decent manga—granny was the saving grace— but there definitely needs to be some content warnings.

2.5/5 Stars

Arc was given by LOVE x LOVEs & NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This review is being published before the release date (February 15th 2022)

Content/Trigger Warnings: Bigotry (those who live in the city/country), brief scene of cockroaches (censored), entomophobia (fear of bugs), scene of underage drinking, drink spiking/drugging, brief fatphobiac name calling, sexual predator behavior, stalking, harassment, brief mentions of abandonment, sex



Oof, friends this manga was rough for me to read. I’m still wondering what the hell I just read. On one hand, I can acknowledge a lot of the cultural references that are happening in this book that relate to things actually happening in present day. On the other hand, the amount of second-hand embarrassment was a lot to read through. And second-hand embarrassment is something that’s always hard for me to recover from with a book. Either way, this was a doozy of a read.

Miyazawa Kyouhei just moved to Tokyo from the country and he has this big idea of the city life is, and how those who live in the city actually are. When Miyazawa goes to give his new apartment neighbor a gift of welcoming, Miyazawa is met with Takara Tomohiro, his senor. And thus begins their wild story of shenanigans and how they come together.

For those who love manga like Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi or Junjou Romantica then this book is right up your alley. However, I will caution that the difference between those manga and this manga is the content warnings. I wasn’t kidding when I said I had a lot of second-hand embarrassment. Not to mention, instead of this manga coming off as leaning more to the romantic, slice of life side of manga, this manga leads more towards contemporary and has back to back scenes that could make the reader really uncomfortable. Often times if feels like you can’t catch your breath on the amount of serious scenes.

However, I really enjoyed the art style and I really appreciate the bursts of happy, positive moments throughout this story. For example, there’s a side character who really enjoys a popular J-Pop group and when this character meets Miyazawa’s grandmother, they have such a wholesome connection that brough the biggest smile to my face. Truly, one of my favorite moments of this manga.

Overall, this wasn’t a terrible read, but this definitely wasn’t the best. A lot happens in this one manga and there’s a lot to process while reading through it all. Plus the second-hand embarrassment from a lot of the incidents that happen. Also, I wish we got to see more romance between the MC and the love interest, but it was interesting to watch them come together. Still a good read and if you’re looking for more contemporary manga then I’d definitely recommend giving this one a chance.

The characters are so cute in this it made me SQUEAL! The art style isn't quite for me. I would have loved to see more color. I really love vibrancy out of graphic novels and mangas. I feel like you can express so much in color. But the heart of this story is still there and I enjoyed it so much. I think these are the most adorable characters I've come across. So I would definitely recommend.

I'm Looking for Serious Love! Is about Kyouhei who has lived in the countryside his whole life but has decided to move to Tokyo. He is classically naive and his new neighbour, Takara, is a huge playboy. It doesn’t take long for Takara to make a move on Kyouhei.

This is a classic, short BL that plays into some much loved tropes like enemies to lovers. There is some explicit content in this one where the consent is... dubious at best. I have come to almost expect this now but I still would have liked to see the consent explicitly stated and thought I’d mention it for anyone who might need to opt out of reading this one.

I did like the humour in the granny character as well as Takara being scared of bugs. I also really loved the art style and the subtleties like Kyouhei not being able to decide which udon to get as a metaphor for not knowing whether to choose Takara or his (equally as problematic) childhood best friend.

Kyouhei was a little too ‘innocent’ for my liking but I do understand this to be a BL trope, and I really would have loved to see more of a loving connection between the two main characters, instead of resentment.

These comics often toy with the line between consent and non-consent, and this one was no exception. It was a little sweet about it, though, and I found it more acceptable than most. Kudos to that.
The art is really beautiful, and maybe the plot is simple and straightforward, but it's a fun and entertaining story, with great characters (loved the granny, lol) and some witty banter. Definitely not disappointed!

I got an ARC of this book.

I saw the cover and thought it was going to be more a slow burn romance. Instead I was given a classic example of why yaoi (I know the term is not a popular one any more, I am using it for a purpse) always hit me weird. This could have been a manga from the 80’s with how it approached gay love.

The love they men had for each other didn’t exist. The sex scenes were almost all forced. I don’t mean it was poorly written and I didn’t ship it, I mean the top literally forced the situation to happen and didn’t have active consent (which is why I used yaoi instead of BL). There is no love, just random sexual assault seen as them starting a relationship. The sexual assault wasn’t even wildly different or exciting.

The art was great. That alone made it stand out from an 80’s yaoi. The art was just so much better.

If you are a fan of old school gay love can only be expressed as assault sort of love stories, then this will scratch that itch and look better doing it than the previous version. If you want your love to have emotions and consent, then you might be better off passing on this one.

I'm Looking for Serious Love is immensely and undeniably cute story. This book was taken on the perspective of a simple person but pointed as a very interesting at some point, which made me giggle and appreciate the characters. But on the other hand, the pacing was not that great, as it feels like it was just easy and fast. Reading this is just like running in a marathon, too much happenings in just some manga panels. Also, the translation seems complex and the choice of words is a little bit suspicious.

Further, the artystyle is so personal, diverse, and beautiful. Although, it didn't have that much twist nor problem but it is definitely a good read.

Just a standard cute manga. Simple plot and fun characters. Not exceptionally interesting, but enjoyable nonetheless. I’ll definitely buy this one for my personal collection!

This was a wild ride and I'm not saying that in a good way. The lack of consent in this made me cringe and then he asks about kissing him - is this novel for real? And then there was that thing with Yuuta.
It was...okay at best and absolutey sucked at worst.

It's really that hard to just not romanticize harassment? I wish authors became more aware that this situations can't just be forgiven easily, this was the most disappointing point of this book.

I'm Looking for Serious Love! Is about Kyouhei who has lived in the countryside his whole life but has decided to move to the city. His next door neighbor Takara, soon their bond grows and Takara makes a move on Kyouhei and everything is cupcakes and rainbows.

This story doesn't have a lot of depth, it's mostly fluff. While I did find the relationship cute, the plot was non existent. The characters were pretty bland as well. While it is a cute story there's no real depth to the story. The artstyle is very good but it doesn't cover up the dullness of the story.