(c)2025 Tokyopop
Sweet or bitter love
Story and Art: Kon-Ro
Publisher: tokyopop (print & digital)
Imprint: Lovelove
Translation: Jacqueline Fung
Typeset: A lively publishing studio
Publication date: June 10, 2025
Rating: Mature 18+
Genre: Boys’ Love, Romance
Ichigi, a young office worker known as “a single lonely man who no one wants to marry,” was alone as long as he could remember. He has an air of pessimism about him until he meets a long range of shattered, crushed colleagues’ islets, a bright star in his life. Surprising circumstances like unexpected blind dates bring them together, but the extreme plot points brought by misunderstandings tear them apart. Will the complete opposition of these two be to find the love (and marriage) they were looking for?
This one shot is a fun lomp, but there is a bit of work that readers have to do to fully enjoy the story. If you don’t take this manga too seriously, you’ll enjoy yourself.
Gay marriage has been legalized in Japan for 10 years, and even professional matchmaking for same-sex couples is openly welcomed in society. The matchmaker’s blind date setup unites the joint and the island outside of work. There, odajima proposes a one-year roommate trial, but at some point she drops her without wanting to marry one person.
(c)2025 Tokyopop
This is Ichigo’s dream, but he cannot fully trust Odajima’s emotions. He finds himself agreeing to move, but decides that while they live together, he must hide all his true feelings from odajima as much as he can.
That was my first brow raise. Odajima is clearly obsessed with one joint, so he didn’t see why the first class is hiding his feelings. But as I continued reading, I came to realize that Iichigi’s loneliness and self-loathing completely distorted him as a person, and he misses many things and places himself in unnecessary suffering. Trauma is deep and can completely hinder decision-making and streamlining. As soon as I got it through my head I was able to continue the better story.
(c)2025 Tokyopop
It’s not long since the bond between one joint and odajima becomes sexual because it took the lead in almost every romantic aspect of their relationship. Strawberry is making his dream come true, but still fears to elicit his emotions. He then eavesdrops on the phone Odajima films at work and misunderstands it completely, thinking it’s all a lie or a game. With impulse, strawberries escape in the most extreme way possible. He visits islands of Japan and does not speak to small islands about his promotion and year-round solo job search. He just stuffs his stuff and is heartbroken.
This was another comic moment when I had to pause and accept the plot. I’m not a fan of misunderstandings. Especially because they come from eavesdropping and can’t simply talk about things. But I had to go back to the fact that Ichigo is a rather ruined character and see his actions and try to try and fix it with the unstable decision that he made Ghost Odajima in the most extreme way possible.
This may be a breaking point for readers, but I would recommend you stay. After all, this is romance, and what is a romance without HEA?
I won’t say anything else about a story beyond that, except I was happy with how it solved and enjoyed this manga.
Art kept the toes on toes because of how they changed throughout the story. Most often, strawberries are painted under the eyes and with glasses, giving them a disappointing nerd look, and odajima is a typical, handsome businessman in the well. Odajima’s appearance remains lovely throughout the manga, but Ichigo is given some of the most entertaining expressions that shake things up.
(c)2025 Tokyopop
“Beautiful” doesn’t have to be a requirement for BL manga, but many of the BLS I’ve read have portrayed everyone as cool guys and humans as exquisitely gorgeous beings. I don’t think that sweet and bitter love characters fall under this description. The beauty of the male in Kon-Ro’s cartoon is dynamic. They don’t always look the best, but the more they fall, the more beautiful they become.
(c)2025 Tokyopop
Sweet or Bitter Love is a fun romance BL and needs to give characters like Ichigi some room. An active story dancing with eerieness and sweet romance, I’m not for everyone, but worth it for BL’s stubborn romance lovers who love to consume as many genres of repetition as possible (I’m one of them). You sympathize with Reed or panic for him (or both), but I’m still happy to have had the opportunity to read it. Try this.
Sweet and Bitter Love is a variety of one-shot BL manga available from the Tokyopop store, as well as digital and print online bookstores.
Like this:
Like loading…
