High school teacher Kento just wants a nice, normal family with lots of kids to make his grandparents happy. After proposing and getting maybe-dumped by his girlfriend (who finds his reasons for proposing rather less than satisfying), Kento ends up getting consoled by a fellow at the bar, Akira, whom he of course ends up sleeping with after getting drunk. After a night of great sex, Kento wakes up alone, and goes back to work only to find that of course (x2!) Akira is a new teacher at his school. Now, Kento must deal with trying to patch things up with his girlfriend while struggling with growing feelings for Akira, while Akira deals with figuring out what to do about Kento, considering past unhappy experiences falling for “straight” men.

I've heard a lot of good things about this manga. That it's characters were more realistic, sympathetic, and well-realized than many yaoi protagonists. That the romance between them was similarly better than usual. That it addresses the issues of homosexual relationships more than most. That it was humorous, sweet, and entertaining.

And, happily, this is all true. There's no huge seme/uke vibe. The characters have distinct personalities and are likable but not too perfect. Their emotions make them do not-so-nice things sometimes, and they freak out in their respective ways about their relationship. But it's in an understandable, relatable way, and there's a tenderness and understanding between them that makes their issues with one another seem worth fighting through. The formerly straight Kento's acceptance of his attraction to a man is still a little too complete a little too quickly for me, but other than that the emotions do have a generally more realistic feel than most yaoi.

On the other hand, while this is all true, I don't find the manga as remarkable as most reviews lead me to believe it was. The aforementioned things that manga does well it only does fairly well. So it then does become sort of remarkable just by virtue of doing those things fairly well when other yaoi usually fail so utterly at most of them. Viewed as a thing in itself and without comparisons to other works in its genre, though, this manga leaves me with no strong impressions. The characters are likable, but rather unmemorable. The dialogue is never bad, yet it's never really striking in any way either, whether it be in its humor, ability to bring out characterization or drama or anything. The plot is quite standard.

I can say that though they were short, I was rather impressed by the sex scenes. I'm often disappointed by these as so often they simply look like two characters in sexual positions and don't really feel erotic to me. This mangaka is pretty good with facial expressions and body language, and these scenes emphasize that even more, using expressions, posing, and paneling to bring out feelings of passion, urgency, and tenderness. Despite some of the most invisible invisible penises I've ever seen (as in not even a glowing cone—there's seriously absolutely nothing there. For all we know these characters could just be a couple of very butch, very confused girls), I think this manga has some of the more erotic yaoi sex scenes I've seen.

So Future Lovers goes on, mildly and pleasantly not-doing-anything-wrong the whole way. While it's true this together with the sex scenes makes the manga notably better than the average yaoi, the whole package comes off as a little lukewarm to me. Add on the even more unremarkable quasi-brothers one-shot at the end, and that puts this manga in the realm of 'entertaining enough while reading but certainly nothing I'm going to pursue more of.'

On the other hand, I may check out something from this mangaka again someday. I can imagine (if perhaps wishfully?) how this could possibly be the work of a better author simply working with one of their less inspired ideas.… (mais)