WL's Gay Manga and Anime Review - 3. Super Lovers by Miyuki Abe (Romance/Comedy/Age Gap Anime and Manga)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Lovers

This is one of those Anime and Manga that I stumbled across in my review of all the BL stuff I’ve missed in the last decade. Published in 2010 and continuing to present, it’s very popular among BL readership, mainly Japanese women. As a gay man watching and reading this material, part of me was wondering, “WTF, how is this so popular” and I have to remove my perspective to understand the point of view from a female readership. I know many readers of gay fiction and gay romance books are heterosexual females, while only a small percentage are gay males seeking an escapist fantasy like me. To me, Sasaki and Miyano represent, currently as of July 2022, the best realistic gay couple in Anime and Manga, but they weren’t as popular as Super Lovers’ Haru and Ren. I’ll review the story and offer my opinion, I can’t say I am a fan of it, but I can understand why female audiences might be attracted.

Length: 15 Japanese manga volumes and 20 Japanese anime episodes across two seasons. This series is long and the manga has the unfortunate issue of the dreaded Soap Opera “Amnesia”-syndrome, Haru gets amnesia again during the Manga. The story can get very draggy and repetitive even in reverse role dynamic.

Plot: Haru Kaidou is a Japanese-Canadian boy, who is almost seventeen years old and visiting his mother in Canada. Upon arrival at her home, he discovers that she had adopted a wild eight-year-old boy, named Ren, who prefers to interact with his mother’s dogs rather than human beings. Through a summer of memories and first, Haru was able to breakthrough through Ren’s emotional barriers. They formed a close friendship and Haru made Ren promise that once he is old enough, he could go live in Tokyo with him. When Haru arrived back home, his father and stepmother got into a car accident, killing both of them and leaving him in a coma for a month. After recovering from the coma, he is unable to remember what happened during that summer or his promise to Ren. Six years later, when he’s 23 and Ren is 14, Ren arrives in Japan to fulfill his promise. At first, Haru is resistant to the idea of having a younger brother and he tries to push Ren away, but slowly, memories trickle in about their summer together. Beyond just the feelings from the memories, Haru and Ren also develop romantic feelings and sexual interest in each other as time passes, creating shock among Haru’s half-siblings and friends due to their taboo homosexual and incestuous relationship.

Review: There’s a lot of stuff to unlock here. To me, this relationship starts off being odd. It’s an extreme example of an age gap relationship and I feel uncomfortable with the idea of Haru wanting to snuggle with Ren, constantly even back when Ren was eight years old in Canada. While I didn’t read into them as being sexual or Haru actively coercing Ren, it doesn’t feel right to start things off like that. Age gap relationships are already complicated by differences in experiences and maturity. This is a borderline Adult-Youth relationship in Japan (technically Ren is at the age of consent when they have sex), but it would be something that would be illegal in the US and Canada. If that alone is enough to give you pause as to whether this anime or manga is worth investing time in, then it is your choice. As I’ve been reviewing books and media, I have read and seen far more uncomfortable subjects, so the premise alone did not drive me away.

Now, let’s get to the characters. For Haru, six years later after the first amnesia, when we are introduced to Haru in the present day, he’s an alcoholic host for a nightclub. I am not sure if the Japanese term for a host is the same as the Chinese equivalent, but a male or female “host” in Chinese is synonymous with a prostitute. Bar managers and servers would not make enough income to support a family as Haru does. If my assumption is correct, it implies a certain dark realism with Haru. He supported the education of his younger twin half-brothers, who he felt responsible for due to how their parents died in the car accident. He’s a commendable human being and character with multi-faceted nature. Early in the anime and manga, we see he’s an alcoholic and one of his “clients” attacks Ren in their home. Early story Haru represents a dark portrait of a human being beaten down by life. Then, we get a series of “incredible” changes such as Haru being able to buy a storefront with a home attached. Then, his twin brothers move in with him and Ren. I am not sure if the writer was trying to aim for surrealism or realism in this story, because the sudden change in tone felt off to me.

Ren’s character, he’s a humanoid dog. Other dogs recognize him as one of their own due to how close he has been with dogs as he grew up in Canada. It creates some interesting funny scenes throughout the series, which genuinely are good situational pieces of humor. However due to his instincts, he does not know how to act around other human beings as a peer, but he wants to be supportive and helpful. One of the issues with his characterization is how his naiveté is played up in the storyline. He is sexually attracted to Haru, but he doesn’t understand human sexuality to the point of it being used as comedy, when he is discussing masturbation openly, causing people around him to run in panic. This may be one of the big issues with his character and the concept of “child grooming” that I fear the author distorts. Haru has been training Ren to be a human being on many different subjects, including proto-sexual and sexual topics. He has been teaching Ren subjects from snuggling with him, kissing, and even giving Ren a hand job in the shower, while Ren is attached to him psychologically. This stuff confuses Ren, but Ren cannot deny what he feels for Haru.

The core plot problem with this comedy and drama is that the relationship is one where the younger partner is passively coerced into a relationship over a long period through active training and actions by the future object of his love. I have heard defenders say that if this were a heterosexual relationship, it would be no different because mainstream stories portray such love stories between non-biological step-siblings all the time. I do not disagree as I have read several heterosexual stories with that premise, but here's the thing, the older step-sibling in those stories does not actively train the younger one in how he/she should act. The ability to discover your body, your sexuality, and find the person you love goes hand-in-hand with the romance genre. In that regard, I am not sure if this is a romance or something being forced on.

Ultimately, this leads to the style of the forced plot. Miyuki Abe is not a bad writer by any means, but her story appears to force actions and plot twists on her characters with the need to be unexpected and shocking. I do appreciate Soap Opera storylines and I enjoy ex-lovers, jealous lovers, and family interference, but to me, it’s the height of lazy writing to rehash your own plot devices in a story to rebrand the characters. In the later issues of the manga, Ren is now the one coercing Haru into sleeping with him after another amnesia. Haru is the resistant subject of the affection from Ren, who ultimately causes Haru to fall in love with him again as the weaker partner in this power shift. I get that the female audience like twists and turns, but this twist does not feel deserved or warranted.

Rating: 2 out 5, I am not a fan of this Anime or Manga. The coercive nature of the relationship is not my cup of tea, nor is the repetition of the premise. I can see the merits of the characters and I understand what some of the author’s original intent was, but it’s not for me. I’ve seen gay incest dealt better with step-siblings in films like Brazilian “From Beginning to End”.