November 2013 Awards

[aarinfantasy]

Congrats to winners of the month!~

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Custom Profile of the Month - Nov 2013

Winner of Profile of the Month: ellymate

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Signature of the Month - Nov 2013

Theme: "Rain"

Winner of Signature of the Month: ritar



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Manga Review(s) of the Month - Nov 2013

Winner(s) of Manga Review of the Month:
calloutyoru

Manga title: I will wait for you in Udagawa / Udagawachou de Mattete yo.
Manga artist: Hideyoshico
Manga cover picture:
picture link~

Review:
High school, boy’s love & cross-dressing.

To be honest, I usually associate those tags with the superfluously predictable type of love story. Well, Hideyoshico just kicked my preconceived notions somewhere awfully remote. Udagawachou de Mattete yo—although consistent with all those labels—is everything but stereotypical.

The plot is head-on. It evolves from an incident right off the bat; Momose accidentally happens to spot his classmate Yashiro standing outside a shopping centre, cross-dressing as a girl. After this, Momose can’t keep his eyes off Yashiro, for reasons he can’t explain, even to himself.

The thoughts and emotions of the characters are explored and conveyed in a straight-forward manner, aided by a generous dose of upfront humour and believable reactions, lacking any pretences. This manga is not written to fulfil anyone’s expectations, but to simply tell a story—about how difficult it can be to fall in love and come to terms with who you are. The subject of cross-dressing is approached tenderly, in a refreshingly realistic way.

Yet, while this story is heavy on the realism, and delves into emotions more complicated than the general “I don’t know if I love him”, it’s far from a depressing read. The sketchy art, quirky characters and their wonderful interactions left me with a long-lasting impression of the story, but also with trembling heartstrings and a fluttery feeling in my chest. It is enough to sate anyone’s secret craving for sweetness, but it won’t cause too bad a toothache.

laketica

Manga title: Mysterious Love (Koiha Ina Mono Mouna Mono)
Manga artist: Zaou Taishi
Manga cover picture: http://i.imgur.com/tzu7DpI.jpg

Review: Serialized in Dear+ and licensed in English by DokiDoki, Koiha Ina Mono Mouna Mono is an adorable and fluffy love story centered around Tamura Masafumi, who predicts the future in his dreams. It begins when Tamura meets Seiwa Narumi on the first day of school and passes out. It turns out he been dreaming that he would turn gay for Seiwa, so he did everything in his power to keep that from happening (cue: your typical resistant, tsundere - and megane! - uke).

Seiwa doesn’t understand why Tamura is nice to everyone except him, and that only lights his fire more – he makes it his mission to become Tamura’s friend (cue: your happy-go-lucky, dorky seme). Seiwa’s persistence and Tamura’s family’s acceptance of Tamura’s gay wet dreams make this manga quite the comedy.

Zaou Taishi’s art is cute and pleasing to the eye as always – puppy dog ears on the seme, hilarious facial expressions, chibis for the comedic effect, flowers and blushing, and so on. Just think about Love Stage!!, which is also from the same artist.

Something I love about this manga is that we get a “ten years later” peek into their life as adults. I love seeing them call each other on first-name basis and other subtle changes that occurred over the years.

My one issue with the manga is that we do not get to see their virgin-licious sex scene! But fear not, you can view it in great detail in the extra story “Zipped Open” in Aruji no Oose no Mama ni, which also contains a few other cute extra stories about the couple!

This manga will make you smile with its humor and fluff factor, even if the story is a little unbelievable. I recommend all yaoi fans to give it a read!

[Yuuri Kirito]

Congratulations to the winners!

@laketica; You invaded MROTM thrice! Awesome!
And @calloutyoru; My dearest buchou, I have no idea you were the one who made me read a Hideyoshico piece ~
Congrats!!

[AlexiaLee]

weee!!! red rain won, congratz ritar!!! and woots! I so totally failed at figuring out who was the author of Hideyoshico's review orz but congratz, cally <3

Congratz to ellymate and laketica too! Haha... I knew that title by Zaou Taishi was yours since you submitted their cards and because it's your undeniable writting style ^^

[celtic7irish]

@laketica - Even without knowing which one, I knew you'd won MROTM again. Congrats!

@calloutyoru - Congrats on winning MROTM!

@ritar - Congrats on the SOTM win!

@ellymate - Beautiful profile! Well, okay, so it's actually kind of weird and creepy, but still awesome! Congrats on the win!

[laketica]

kufufu~ thanks all, I was really shocked and happily surprised!!! I didn't think I stood a chance - the reviews were all really great - I ended up re-reading Love Stage today, I JUST LOVE ZAOU TAISHI SO MUCH. @AlexiaLee; you might be the only one to notice that I had submit the cards for Mysterious Love my fave manga of ALL time. I wrote the review in hopes of getting more people to read it. Hope it worked!

@celtic7irish; you couldn't tell which was mine?! haha, I feel like I'm really obvious now. I gotta change things up to hide... @calloutyoru; oh man... I knew that once you joined, the competition would get so intense. XD You're an amazing writer as always - fan fic AND review. @Yuuri Kirito; the competition is so insane now, huh?!?!?! Oh man... I think I'll run away soon

and congrats to @ellymate; and @ritar; of course, too!!! You guys deserve the wins for sure, amongst so many awesome entries! and... had to say........... OHAF ftw!!

[stormwolf2010]

Congrats to the winners!

[bronakopdin]

congrats to all 4 of you!!!

@laketica; you're cheating no, but seems you're good at what you're doing
@ritar; master is ducking awesome again
@calloutyoru; admit it: my skirt peeping gave you inspiration
@ellymate; I still don't know if I think about it as cool or cute... probably both

[cally]

Congratulations to the winners~ and thanks to all who congratulated me; I'm so happy! I wasn't sure if I should enter this because I don't read much BL series nowadays (and what I read might not be all that popular), but someone *cough* @laketica *cough* directed me here, and yes... I read something I couldn't stop thinking about so I thought it was good timing.

I'm aware Hideyoshico / Hideyoshiko isn't that well-known and liked by everyone, but I truly adore her works so if I managed to get even one person to read her stories, I'm very much content <3 (so happy you did @Yuuri Kirito ♥)

and @bronakopdin the connection being.. looking under skirts & cross-dressing..? lol, Idk.

[Nouche]

congratz to all the winners
thanks for a fair fight

@ritar; next time you'll place second - i'll make sure of that
xD

[aarinfantasy]

It is extremely fun to see so much friendly competition going around ^_^