“I’m always gonna be there to lift you to your feet. Even when we get into a fight, I’m still on your side!” Taichi to Kohei.

Taichi Sagawa first met Kohei Sugiwara (who is deaf) at university – and friendship soon blossomed over food (Kohei’s mother is a professional chef and Taichi is always hungry) and Taichi’s cheerful loud voice which made conversation easier between them. Taichi was inspired by Kohei’s communication issues to take a job with an enterprise specialising in helping people with disabilities lead normal lives. As the two young men weather various storms and personal crises together, their friendship has deepened into love and they’ve been going out for a while. Kohei is at the end of his degree course and has taken an internship over the summer to help ease himself into BART, the company that have made him a job offer. But what should be a seamless transition, with support offered by his new fellow workers, becomes a nightmare as he finds himself having to work with Isutani who goes out of his way to behave in the most boorish, surly, and aggressive way to the new intern. Isutani, it seems, has been temporarily reassigned from General Admin to HR and doesn’t seem too happy about it. Is he taking his frustrations out on Kohei, the hapless intern?

Meanwhile, Taichi is still doing his best to be a mentor to Sudo, the newest member of the team but Sudo doesn’t want anything to do with him. As the situation worsens, other members of the team have noticed how Sudo keeps avoiding Taichi or telling him to get out of his face. Is Sudo harbouring some kind of grudge toward Taichi? And with all their problems at work, the two young men hardly have time to see each other so their relationship is not making much progress – although being connect via ‘Lamp’ (Line) is a step forward.

This is the eighth volume of Yuki Fumino’s ongoing Boys’ Love series and it goes from strength to strength in its own quiet way. This series is slice of life and the central relationship is one of the slowest of slow burns, but the conversations and confrontations feel very real. This is reinforced by the way the mangaka draws her characters, utilising close-ups and a variety of panels to hype up the tension.

If the last volume paid more attention to Taichi and his difficult relationship with his (mostly) absent father, this one focuses mainly on Kohei as he begins his internship at BART. The mangaka has a skill for developing situations involving her characters that pull the reader in and she just about manages to stay the right side of the line in what could so easily be soap-style situations with drama for drama’s sake.

However, several of the ongoing storylines have been quietly going on from many volumes back and I can’t help thinking it would help readers to have a character guide and a synopsis of what’s happened so far. I had to look back several volumes to trace Sudo – and his initial encounter with Taichi is way back. Sudo has significant issues which have been hinted at over many, many chapters and I think there needs to be greater clarity in reminding the reader (or even giving a little more detail) because the root of his issues (and things are beginning to blow up here) is still obscure. Which is getting to be frustrating! Also, even though Kohei shows remarkable maturity and insight in dealing with the appalling behaviour of Isutani, I feel that Isutani’s treatment of an intern or younger colleague would be unacceptable in any work situation. With Kohei also having to deal with the hostile attitude of the other intern, Igarashi, who has visual impairment, it all seems a bit much to pile on the poor young man! But, as ever, there’s a backstory and presumably, not everything is as it seems…

To lighten all the angst, this volume concludes with two short stories: Matching His Stride in which Kohei gets his driver’s licence and drives Taichi to the beach, even though it’s winter, because he can! – and Chatting Up a Storm in which we listen in on the (increasingly inebriated) conversation of the three female BART employees as they discuss the relative merits of the two new interns over drinks.

And yes, this is still the slowest of slow-burns, with the mangaka still promising that ‘I do plan to let things get a little spicier in the next volume’ in the ‘Thanks’ page at the end, We shall see…

The excellent translation for One Peace Books is still by Stephen Kohler (the letterer is still uncredited) and it’s again a shame that the lovely colour pages to be found in the Hana (French) editions are not included here as one of the mangaka’s strengths is her strikingly beautiful use of colours (seen here again on the cover). The fourth volume of Four Seasons is due out in Japan in September and the series is still ongoing in Canna, although the mangaka also has a new series there as well, so we shall see…

Our review copy from One Peace Books was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).