REVIEW: Anyhow, the Rabbit is Infatuated With the Puppy (manga) by Nie, translated by Yui

Anyhow, the Rabbit is Infatuated With the Puppy is a one-shot m/m romantic comedy manga. I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review:

Usagi is a 25-year-old office worker who finds interacting with people in real life to be troublesome and awkward, although he's good-looking enough that his coldness doesn't stop his female coworkers from inviting him to department get-togethers. All Usagi wants to do, however, is read shojo manga and play his favorite MMO, Tail Earth. His in-game avatar is a beautiful bunny girl named Usaco. He's particularly close to another player, Gakuto, who helped him out when he was new. Even though Gakuto knows he's a guy in real-life, he regularly compliments and flirts with Usaco - Usagi, meanwhile, happily feels like he's getting to roleplay his own cute shojo romance story.

Then Gakuto proposes that they go to the Tail Earth fan convention together. Although this risks the possibility that Gakuto won't measure up to Usagi's shojo fantasies, he ends up agreeing to go, and the two of them hit it off really well in real life. They decide to go to an internet cafe and play Tail Earth together...and things suddenly get much steamier than Usagi expected. Not only does this not fit his shojo romance expectations, but there's the issue that Gakuto is a high schooler.

No spoilers, but there are other awkward revelations in this, and one moment in particular made both me and Usagi feel like our souls had left our bodies. My horror, it was immense.

This is a BL manga with on-page sex between a 25-year-old and a high schooler. The high schooler is the more sexually aggressive one through most of the volume, but still. The volume's problematic aspects are acknowledged by several characters (Usagi and one other character, who calls Usagi a "pedo" but whose actions indicate he doesn't really have a problem with their relationship), but acknowledgment is about as far as things go. It doesn't stop Usagi from allowing Gakuto to take things further between them, and no one else seems to have much of a problem with their relationship. Granted, some of the characters seem to view it like getting to watch their favorite BL romance play out live - more a story for them to enjoy than reality.

It's a shame, because I thought Usagi and Gakuto were a cute couple whenever I was briefly able to forget the age difference. Gakuto came on way stronger than I generally like (especially during that internet cafe scene - they'd met IRL for the first time that day, and they were basically in public), but he did attempt (unsuccessfully) to tone it down later. I thought there might end up being some gender-related complications as well, considering that Gakuto initially fell for Usaco, Usagi's female avatar, but that wasn't the case. Overall, I also really liked the artwork.

But...yeah. I don't know. And the way BL manga ended up functioning as a sex/relationship "how to" was also kind of concerning (although I guess it depends which ones? but still...).

Extras:

One full-color illustration, a note from the author, and a 4-page bonus chapter.