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patrokonus's review
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual content
Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, and Death of parent
Minor: Homophobia, Kidnapping, and Pregnancy
haruhaya's review
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.5
markwillnevercry's review
3.0
Can YOU spot insane homophobia in this manga?
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! It is, in fact, the background of both characters. I am honestly tired of how often I will be reading lgbtq+ manga just to find out that everyone had extremely traumatic childhood before figuring out their sexuality, specifically when that traumatic event is then tied directly into their understanding of their sexuality. I am tired, I wish the traumatic events did not happen, the rest was rather good, but the traumas were a big issue.
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! It is, in fact, the background of both characters. I am honestly tired of how often I will be reading lgbtq+ manga just to find out that everyone had extremely traumatic childhood before figuring out their sexuality, specifically when that traumatic event is then tied directly into their understanding of their sexuality. I am tired, I wish the traumatic events did not happen, the rest was rather good, but the traumas were a big issue.
carpelibrum's review
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I don’t usually check tw or reviews before reading, I just saw this recommended as a queer love story and blindly went into it. I think maybe this should have a content warning directly on the cover. Because it looks just like a fluffy story until halfway (esp the cover) and I WAS NOT PREPARED.
I don’t mind the content but I don’t feel like it was used appropriately in the story. It felt like a cheap use of trauma to drive character growth but the book could’ve made the same points without the big traumatic event in the middle and with just the other aspects of the characters’ past.
Problematic content aside the love story itself wasn’t up my alley (didn’t feel it, didn’t get attached to the characters, thought it wasn’t fleshed out enough) but the could be just personal preference so I’m not completely faulting the book for it.
I don’t mind the content but I don’t feel like it was used appropriately in the story. It felt like a cheap use of trauma to drive character growth but the book could’ve made the same points without the big traumatic event in the middle and with just the other aspects of the characters’ past.
Problematic content aside the love story itself wasn’t up my alley (didn’t feel it, didn’t get attached to the characters, thought it wasn’t fleshed out enough) but the could be just personal preference so I’m not completely faulting the book for it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Pedophilia, Rape, and Sexual assault
indiekay's review against another edition
5.0
Content Warnings CW: Graphic on-page depictions of a child getting raped and threatened with genital mutilation; a child forced by their mother to pretend to be a gender they aren't; one main character forcefully shows his genitals to the other; the same character also threatens to rape the other character while having a breakdown/flashback/anxiety attack; parental death; trans and gay slurs
I wish the paperback of this book came with some kid of warning for how graphic the CSA scene is, because I wasn't prepared for it at all. The book came wrapped in plastic and said not suitable for readers under 17 in tiny print at the back, but that really didn't prepare me at all.
That said, I hope the CW don't throw you off of this book completely, because I did still really like it and I think it had a lot of important things to say, especially about gender and surviving abuse. The art style is truly beautiful and Taiga and Arima's relationship is funny and sweet at times. The book switches between comedic idiot x hothead high school romance and very heavy topics of gender, abuse and loneliness.
Below I am going to write out the whole plot so you can decide whether or not this is a manga you want to read, with how many CW there are involved.
Taiga is upset when he realises Arima isn't a girl, but when another classmate says actually he went to elementary school with Maria and she was a girl there and only pretends to be a boy in high school, Taiga gets excited and goes to confront Arima about this. Arima is extremely upset by Taiga calling him a girl and shows Taiga his genitals to get him to leave him alone. But as Arima walks out of the room, Taiga sees that Arima kept the flowers Taiga had given him during his confession, and that fact makes Taiga realise that he liked Arima even if Arima is a boy.
When Taiga confesses to Arima AGAIN, Arima basically tells him that the lines he says are complete shit and if he can learn to be a better actor, he might consider going out with him. Taiga tried to audition for the school play and was told he could maybe play an inanimate object in the play, and Taiga is crushed to be told both by the head of the drama club and his crush that his acting is so terrible, so he vows to get better, and after yet another failed confession to Arima, Arima starts to run lines and trains with Taiga to improve his acting.
Throughout the story, we've also seen some flashbacks of Taiga's childhood. We learn that his father cheated on his mother and she knew about it, but she gets sick suddenly after Taiga hears his mother and father fighting about the affair. One day when Taiga and his father were going to visit her in the hospital, his father tells Taiga to go on ahead and rushes off with the flowers he'd had with him. Taiga goes to visit his mother, and while he's with her she suddenly starts coughing and dies in front of him. When Taiga sees his father again, he notices he doesn't have the flowers anymore and assumes his father left to go be with the woman he'd been cheating with instead of coming to see his mother at the hospital.
At this point in the story we get some scenes from Arima's POV too. He warns Taiga that he shouldn't be interested in him because he has trauma, but Taiga's too stupid to understand what he means. Arima has a lot of conflicting feelings about gender - when Taiga asks Arima is quick to say he's a boy, but when another classmate asks Arima if he's a boy or a girl, Arima says he doesn't know and flees.
The drama-club advisor comes to drama club and sees Taiga audition for the main role, and everyone agrees that Taiga has gotten a lot better. When Taiga brags that Arima was teaching him, everyone is surprised to learn Arima can act, and Taiga is confused because he thought everyone already knew Arima can act. Taiga then says he thinks Arima should get the main role in the play.
The advisor takes Taiga for a walk. The advisor says about Arima, "Someone who's heart is so torn between two genders, it's broken in two." Arima only dances in the plays and never takes speaking roles, and the one time he did have a speaking roll he fainted on stage.
We find out through flashbacks that Arima's past. His mother was an actress and she'd wanted a daughter, but due to complications she could only have one child, and it was a boy. Nonetheless, she raised Arima as a girl, and was very strict with every way Arima behaved to make sure Arima looked and acted like a girl. When Arima starts collecting stickers from a boy's TV show, the boys in school make fun of Arima, Arima flees to cry in the store room, where a kindly teacher finds Arima.
Arima starts to depend on the teacher and trusts him. So Arima wants to tell the teacher he's a boy, but the teacher instead drags Arima into a bathroom in the park and rapes him. The scene is very graphic and upsetting, and the teacher has a cake knife with him that he plans to use to cut off Arima's genitals, when someone comes in and punches him, saving Arima.
After this incident Arima cuts his hair and starts presenting as a boy. When he did the play as the lead role in the past, he had looked out into the audience and seen his rapist in the crowd, and that was what caused him to faint. Now, in the present, he auditions on stage in front of the advisor and Taiga, but being on stage again makes him relive those memories, and he shouts about his past before running off. Taiga follows him and tells him that he admires him so much, and that he wants to be with him, because there's nothing worse than being alone.
Some time passes, and Taiga has been given the lead role in the play. Taiga and Arima still have their weird mentorship relationship going on. Arima, in his inner monologue, says how much he's grown to admire Taiga.
While they're doing a dress rehearsal for the play, a group of students request to watch, and Arima can hear them talking. One is the same student that told Taiga all those months ago that Arima used to wear dresses in elementary, and he knows for a fact Arima is a girl, at which point Arima yells out, "I'm not--" and then stops himself. The memories come back of the first time he'd been on stage, and all the conflicting feelings he has about being a boy or a girl suddenly overwhelm him. When Taiga comes to hug Arima and tells him he'll be okay, Arima suddenly remembers the stranger that saved him, and that he admires Taiga because Taiga reminds him of that man.
Arima runs away from the drama club, and we find out from a flashback that the man that saved him was actually Taiga's father, on the same day Taiga's mother died. He had told Taiga to go ahead because they'd been walking next to the park and Taiga's father had seen the teacher dragging Arima into the toilets, and had run to stop him. He offers the flowers he had been planning to give to his wife to Arima in the hopes of making him feel better.
When Taiga finds Arima, Arima is deep into a spiral of bad memories and realisations that he is envy of Taiga. Taiga confesses to Arima again, and Arima snaps, pushing Taiga to the table and yelling at him as he cries. Arima threatens to rape Taiga, yelling that if Taiga truly wants to know what Arima feels like he'd have to experience what it's like to be raped, because it hurts all the time, and he can never forget it. And then he cries and says he's jealous of Taiga and he doesn't know if he's a boy or a girl.
Then Taiga cries too, saying he wants to be like Arima because before he met him he was so alone all the time, and since he met Arima he's met new people and he's changed so much as a person, and he's not alone anymore. And Arima realises just how much Taiga has changed since he first met him, and he apologises to him.
There's a time jump, and Taiga is getting ready for the school play's opening night. His father sees him getting ready and says he wishes he'd known it was today so he could come watch. Taiga is surprised his father even cares, since they've had such a bad relationship since his mother died. Taiga says that since he can't come, he'll bring the club's star to meet him sometime instead. Taiga leaves, and we see his father look up at the calendar and say "Did you hear that, honey? Our boy met a girl."
After the play is over Taiga's father is outside - he wasn't in time to see the play, but he came anyway. He asks Taiga where the girl he mentioned earlier is, and Tiaga is confused by what he means and rushes off. Arima sees Taiga's father and immediately recognises him as the man that saved him all those years ago and bows to him, and then says as he leaves "there's no reason why Taiga can't have a boyfriend..."
The book ends with Arima pulling Taiga away from his friends into an empty classroom, and kissing him.
~My thoughts~
I personally want to read Arima as being nonbinary or agender. Another interpretation (if we take Arima's story as a metaphor instead of face-value) is how trans men feel when they're raised to be female, and even if they know deep down that they're men, they still struggle to present as the men they know they are because of what society expects from them, and from the trauma they may have experienced being raised as girls. Or it could be read as a how intersex children are often forced into being one gender of another by their parents. No matter the interpretation, I think a lot of nonbinary and trans people will be able to see themselves in how Arima feels about his gender.
I also found the plot around Taiga's parents really heart-breaking. Taiga's father wanted to apologise to his wife for cheating on her, but instead had to rush away to save a child that he saw in danger, and while he was doing that his wife died in front of his son, and he wasn't there to comfort him. He never got the chance to apologise to his wife, and his son resented him for causing his mother pain and not being there. Taiga's father never told Taiga why he'd rushed off, and the rift that this caused between then was a big reason why Taiga felt so lonely his entire life. The ending of the story wasn't just hopeful for Taiga and Arima to get together as a couple, but also really hopeful that Taiga and his father would one day be able to mend the rift in their relationship.
The mangaka passed away suddenly in 2020 when he was just 23 years old, and it's truly so sad that this is the only completed manga he published. I'm sure given the chance he would have had a beautiful career of rich stories and gorgeous art -- or maybe he would have switched careers and done something else with his life.
I wish the paperback of this book came with some kid of warning for how graphic the CSA scene is, because I wasn't prepared for it at all. The book came wrapped in plastic and said not suitable for readers under 17 in tiny print at the back, but that really didn't prepare me at all.
That said, I hope the CW don't throw you off of this book completely, because I did still really like it and I think it had a lot of important things to say, especially about gender and surviving abuse. The art style is truly beautiful and Taiga and Arima's relationship is funny and sweet at times. The book switches between comedic idiot x hothead high school romance and very heavy topics of gender, abuse and loneliness.
Below I am going to write out the whole plot so you can decide whether or not this is a manga you want to read, with how many CW there are involved.
Spoiler
The story starts with Taiga as our main character. He's full of himself and delusional about how the world works, and he declares he's going to be the best actor in the acting club. Then he sees the dance troop dancing and falls for Maria, one of the girls on stage. Except when Taiga takes flowers to confess to Maria he founds out that Maria is actually Arima, and is a boy who was asked to dress and dance with the girls because one of the other dancers couldn't make it.Taiga is upset when he realises Arima isn't a girl, but when another classmate says actually he went to elementary school with Maria and she was a girl there and only pretends to be a boy in high school, Taiga gets excited and goes to confront Arima about this. Arima is extremely upset by Taiga calling him a girl and shows Taiga his genitals to get him to leave him alone. But as Arima walks out of the room, Taiga sees that Arima kept the flowers Taiga had given him during his confession, and that fact makes Taiga realise that he liked Arima even if Arima is a boy.
When Taiga confesses to Arima AGAIN, Arima basically tells him that the lines he says are complete shit and if he can learn to be a better actor, he might consider going out with him. Taiga tried to audition for the school play and was told he could maybe play an inanimate object in the play, and Taiga is crushed to be told both by the head of the drama club and his crush that his acting is so terrible, so he vows to get better, and after yet another failed confession to Arima, Arima starts to run lines and trains with Taiga to improve his acting.
Throughout the story, we've also seen some flashbacks of Taiga's childhood. We learn that his father cheated on his mother and she knew about it, but she gets sick suddenly after Taiga hears his mother and father fighting about the affair. One day when Taiga and his father were going to visit her in the hospital, his father tells Taiga to go on ahead and rushes off with the flowers he'd had with him. Taiga goes to visit his mother, and while he's with her she suddenly starts coughing and dies in front of him. When Taiga sees his father again, he notices he doesn't have the flowers anymore and assumes his father left to go be with the woman he'd been cheating with instead of coming to see his mother at the hospital.
At this point in the story we get some scenes from Arima's POV too. He warns Taiga that he shouldn't be interested in him because he has trauma, but Taiga's too stupid to understand what he means. Arima has a lot of conflicting feelings about gender - when Taiga asks Arima is quick to say he's a boy, but when another classmate asks Arima if he's a boy or a girl, Arima says he doesn't know and flees.
The drama-club advisor comes to drama club and sees Taiga audition for the main role, and everyone agrees that Taiga has gotten a lot better. When Taiga brags that Arima was teaching him, everyone is surprised to learn Arima can act, and Taiga is confused because he thought everyone already knew Arima can act. Taiga then says he thinks Arima should get the main role in the play.
The advisor takes Taiga for a walk. The advisor says about Arima, "Someone who's heart is so torn between two genders, it's broken in two." Arima only dances in the plays and never takes speaking roles, and the one time he did have a speaking roll he fainted on stage.
We find out through flashbacks that Arima's past. His mother was an actress and she'd wanted a daughter, but due to complications she could only have one child, and it was a boy. Nonetheless, she raised Arima as a girl, and was very strict with every way Arima behaved to make sure Arima looked and acted like a girl. When Arima starts collecting stickers from a boy's TV show, the boys in school make fun of Arima, Arima flees to cry in the store room, where a kindly teacher finds Arima.
Arima starts to depend on the teacher and trusts him. So Arima wants to tell the teacher he's a boy, but the teacher instead drags Arima into a bathroom in the park and rapes him. The scene is very graphic and upsetting, and the teacher has a cake knife with him that he plans to use to cut off Arima's genitals, when someone comes in and punches him, saving Arima.
After this incident Arima cuts his hair and starts presenting as a boy. When he did the play as the lead role in the past, he had looked out into the audience and seen his rapist in the crowd, and that was what caused him to faint. Now, in the present, he auditions on stage in front of the advisor and Taiga, but being on stage again makes him relive those memories, and he shouts about his past before running off. Taiga follows him and tells him that he admires him so much, and that he wants to be with him, because there's nothing worse than being alone.
Some time passes, and Taiga has been given the lead role in the play. Taiga and Arima still have their weird mentorship relationship going on. Arima, in his inner monologue, says how much he's grown to admire Taiga.
While they're doing a dress rehearsal for the play, a group of students request to watch, and Arima can hear them talking. One is the same student that told Taiga all those months ago that Arima used to wear dresses in elementary, and he knows for a fact Arima is a girl, at which point Arima yells out, "I'm not--" and then stops himself. The memories come back of the first time he'd been on stage, and all the conflicting feelings he has about being a boy or a girl suddenly overwhelm him. When Taiga comes to hug Arima and tells him he'll be okay, Arima suddenly remembers the stranger that saved him, and that he admires Taiga because Taiga reminds him of that man.
Arima runs away from the drama club, and we find out from a flashback that the man that saved him was actually Taiga's father, on the same day Taiga's mother died. He had told Taiga to go ahead because they'd been walking next to the park and Taiga's father had seen the teacher dragging Arima into the toilets, and had run to stop him. He offers the flowers he had been planning to give to his wife to Arima in the hopes of making him feel better.
When Taiga finds Arima, Arima is deep into a spiral of bad memories and realisations that he is envy of Taiga. Taiga confesses to Arima again, and Arima snaps, pushing Taiga to the table and yelling at him as he cries. Arima threatens to rape Taiga, yelling that if Taiga truly wants to know what Arima feels like he'd have to experience what it's like to be raped, because it hurts all the time, and he can never forget it. And then he cries and says he's jealous of Taiga and he doesn't know if he's a boy or a girl.
Then Taiga cries too, saying he wants to be like Arima because before he met him he was so alone all the time, and since he met Arima he's met new people and he's changed so much as a person, and he's not alone anymore. And Arima realises just how much Taiga has changed since he first met him, and he apologises to him.
There's a time jump, and Taiga is getting ready for the school play's opening night. His father sees him getting ready and says he wishes he'd known it was today so he could come watch. Taiga is surprised his father even cares, since they've had such a bad relationship since his mother died. Taiga says that since he can't come, he'll bring the club's star to meet him sometime instead. Taiga leaves, and we see his father look up at the calendar and say "Did you hear that, honey? Our boy met a girl."
After the play is over Taiga's father is outside - he wasn't in time to see the play, but he came anyway. He asks Taiga where the girl he mentioned earlier is, and Tiaga is confused by what he means and rushes off. Arima sees Taiga's father and immediately recognises him as the man that saved him all those years ago and bows to him, and then says as he leaves "there's no reason why Taiga can't have a boyfriend..."
The book ends with Arima pulling Taiga away from his friends into an empty classroom, and kissing him.
~My thoughts~
I personally want to read Arima as being nonbinary or agender. Another interpretation (if we take Arima's story as a metaphor instead of face-value) is how trans men feel when they're raised to be female, and even if they know deep down that they're men, they still struggle to present as the men they know they are because of what society expects from them, and from the trauma they may have experienced being raised as girls. Or it could be read as a how intersex children are often forced into being one gender of another by their parents. No matter the interpretation, I think a lot of nonbinary and trans people will be able to see themselves in how Arima feels about his gender.
I also found the plot around Taiga's parents really heart-breaking. Taiga's father wanted to apologise to his wife for cheating on her, but instead had to rush away to save a child that he saw in danger, and while he was doing that his wife died in front of his son, and he wasn't there to comfort him. He never got the chance to apologise to his wife, and his son resented him for causing his mother pain and not being there. Taiga's father never told Taiga why he'd rushed off, and the rift that this caused between then was a big reason why Taiga felt so lonely his entire life. The ending of the story wasn't just hopeful for Taiga and Arima to get together as a couple, but also really hopeful that Taiga and his father would one day be able to mend the rift in their relationship.
The mangaka passed away suddenly in 2020 when he was just 23 years old, and it's truly so sad that this is the only completed manga he published. I'm sure given the chance he would have had a beautiful career of rich stories and gorgeous art -- or maybe he would have switched careers and done something else with his life.
jonnywarlock's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
neylane's review against another edition
5.0
“Foi a primeira vez que eu vi uma pessoa com o gênero tão dividido quanto ele”
Boy meets Maria é um mangá muito sensível, tem seus momentos de leveza e comédia, mas a trama central é pesada.
Taiga entra no ensino médio querendo participar do clube de teatro da escola, e lá ele se encanta por Maria, até mesmo chega a confessar seu amor por ela. Porém, Maria é na verdade Arima, um garoto que passa por profundas questões de gênero. A pureza de Taiga é o que traz essa maior leveza pra história, mas ainda assim, tanto Taiga quanto Arima passaram por momentos trágicos na infância que causaram traumas que acabam refletindo nas personalidades deles.
É um mangá lindíssimo, delicado, mas não deixa de apertar o coração em algumas passagens. É bonito ver os dois garotos se descobrindo e percebendo que podem ser a ajuda um do outro. Indico muito.
Boy meets Maria é um mangá muito sensível, tem seus momentos de leveza e comédia, mas a trama central é pesada.
Taiga entra no ensino médio querendo participar do clube de teatro da escola, e lá ele se encanta por Maria, até mesmo chega a confessar seu amor por ela. Porém, Maria é na verdade Arima, um garoto que passa por profundas questões de gênero. A pureza de Taiga é o que traz essa maior leveza pra história, mas ainda assim, tanto Taiga quanto Arima passaram por momentos trágicos na infância que causaram traumas que acabam refletindo nas personalidades deles.
É um mangá lindíssimo, delicado, mas não deixa de apertar o coração em algumas passagens. É bonito ver os dois garotos se descobrindo e percebendo que podem ser a ajuda um do outro. Indico muito.
astronad's review against another edition
3.0
It's really on me when I read the full content warning, see my biggest trigger, and read it anyway.
I'm not, like, smart.
I'm not, like, smart.
nyko's review against another edition
5.0
Me ha encantado, es un manga bastante duro en ciertos puntos, pero por suerte termina más feliz de lo que empieza, algo que de verdad agradezco. Es una muy bonita y complicada historia de amor