Review: LOVE ROUND!!

 Let's wrap this month up with another one-shot from one of modern BL's most popular creators.

LOVE ROUND!! (Rabu Raundo!!), by Hinako Takanaga.  First published in 2003 and first published in North America in 2009.

PLOT:

Kaoru Komatsuna is very sensitive about his feminine name and his equally feminine looks, particularly when tall, muscular, traditionally handsome guys like Kubo comment on it.  Meanwhile, Kubo is just impressed that such a small guy could send him flying with just a single punch.  He encourages Kaoru to join his boxing gym, where Kaoru might succeed as a flyweight fighter.  Soon enough Kubo finds himself falling for the fiery Kaoru, but can he stop sticking his foot in his mouth long enough to make his feelings known?

STORY:

Love Round!! really exemplifies a lot of what I like about the works of Hinako Takanaga in a single volume.  You've got a great leading couple with strong, well-defined personalities.  You've got a lot of good humor that's woven naturally into the story.  Best of all, it doesn't just end when our leads finally get together.

At a time when a lot of BL was chained to the seme/uke dynamic, Hinako Takanaga distinguished herself by her willingness to tweak, if not outright avoid, those character types and Love Round!! is a good example of that.  Kubo would seem to be the seme here, but instead of being an aloof jackass he's a spacey, friendly doofus with no brain-to-mouth filter.  Kaoru is a little closer to your typical uke, being quick to anger and quick to deny his growing feelings for Kubo, but Takanaga makes it clear that much of Kaoru's anger comes from a toxic combination of pride and insecurity about his masculinity.  Kubo is able to win him over not with passion, but by simply respecting Kaoru's skills as a fighter and treating him like one of the guys.  They're great characters all on their own, and it's easy to see why these two would be crushing on one another long before either of them figures things out.

Despite the fact that this is just a single volume story, Takanaga takes her time with Kubo and Kaoru.  She doesn't rush them into bed for the sake of smut.  If anything, she mines a lot of good humor not just from their initial miscommunications, but the fallout of their relationship going public after Kubo's first professional bout.  She makes the most of her limited space and Love Round!! is all the stronger for it.

ART:

Takanaga's art was always not as heavily stylized as her peers.  That means her characters not only have normal proportions and cute faces, but you even get a sense of the difference in muscle mass between the two leads.  That being said, Kubo and Kaoru look pretty similar to most of her leading couples, with a tall dark-haired handsome one and a tinier, prettier blond boy.  Even if their faces are familiar, she gets a lot of emotion out of them, be it big and comical or subtle and conflicted.  She packs a lot onto the page but keeps the flowers and screentones to a minimum, using them more as visual gags than anything else.

RATING:

Love Round!! is a total knockout.  It manages to pack a lot of charm, humor, and good art in its pages and makes the most of its sports-themed premise.  This isn't an easy book to find any more, but it's one that will be well-worth the effort.

This book was published by Aurora Publishing.  It is currently out of print.