By Eu
Zantei Boyfriend is my first Takasaki Bosco manga I ever read, and the cover instantly caught my eye. The whole “pheromone” premise reminds me of Gakuen Alice, though.
Pheromones – because what better excuse to approach your crush?
Akizuki hates trains. Especially packed ones. Like that one event where he encounters another groper. A young guy saved him, who turns out to be one of his students. This guy, Reiya, works as a model and popular at school due to his striking looks (aren’t they all? www). But he is also Akizuki’s diligent student. Like a good student that he is, he is set to help Akizuki and his pheromone problem – by posing as his professor’s temporary boyfriend.
Zantei Boyfriend is a pretty easy read. But let me warn you. It contains dubious consent, meaning it’s hard to tell whether Akizuki consented on doing questionable things with Reiya or not. So if you’re still planning to read this (see eye candies or whatever), consider yourself warned.
The whole pheromone thing cracks me up. Thank goodness, it’s just the usual BL stuff and not the kind similar to Narumi of Gakuen Alice. Think of a docile yet still very sexy Aoba, and you’ll get Akizuki. If it helps, here –
Priorities
When I think about it, it is one thing to worry about being caught on the receiving end of the groping but shouldn’t be having a relationship with a student far more worrisome? Akizuki worries about being scandalized because of his ~pheromones~ but not his fake dating with Reiya. Granted, he doesn’t think much about the whole dating as a real thing. But they still hang out a lot and not just inside their laboratory. Wouldn’t that be asking for bad rumors especially with him not being popular with the other students in the first place? Priorities Akizuki, priorities.
On the other hand, Reiya with his gaijin looks appears like an alpha seme. He is dominating and treats Akizuki as his own. But he is more of a gentle seme which I wish was apparent at the beginning. He looks cuter like that, and there wouldn’t have been some dubcon scenes, which acts as fanservice and not something that helps with the plot.
The art caught my eye as always. And it was such a shame that my interest ended there. I wanted to put this on my fave list, but perhaps it suited more on the guilty pleasure list. It’s not an outright PWP, but not also something I’d tell everyone to read.
Zantei Boyfriend has all of the popular tropes in BL which should either make it or break it. It ended up somewhere in the middle.