MintyWyvern

On a whim, I started watching a bl anime called Sasaki to Miyano after seeing a very sweet gif set of it on twitter. I was curious so I decided to look up the anime and start watching it.

I didn't think it would tickle my brain so much suddenly, so much so that i'm writing a fucking post about it but here we are.

I'm putting it under a read more because its long but also i'm just gonna go over the entirety of the anime series (and a tiny bit of the manga) so uhh spoiler warnings ahead (and general warning because i'm writing this all in one go and as stated before, im not much of a writer so there's going to be grammar errors and run ons a lot, but i'll do my best to not do that aaa.)

---

(slight disclaimer: I don't know the gender of the author for the series. I tried looking it up but I couldn't find anything. I know for stuff like this it can very much change the context of how a bl is written but I couldn't really find much about them after looking around. If you know please lmk!)

Before I start, i'll add very quick character blurbs because these are the characters that pop up the most in the screenshots I took, though I still highly recommend watching the anime yourself bc many of the side characters are delightful in their own way and if I could talk about just them i would LOL

Miyano: the main character, black hair and with the mole under his eye

Sasaki: Love interest, character with the orange hair

Hanzawa: senpai, with the short brown hair

Hirano: senpai who has a dorm roommate, usually the one with blonde hair in the screenshots except for a few moments where he had dyed his hair back to black.

Ogasawara: another senpai, he's the one with black hair and blue streaks.

I recently watched a bl anime called Sasaki to Miyano (or Sasaki and Miyano) and It has been living rent free in my mind for the past two days.
I first started watching it for a very sweet gifset i saw of it on twitter and thought "wait this seems cute" but was blindsided once I did start properly watching it because

1. I didn't realize it was a comedy
2. I didn't realize that despite being a bl anime itself, it does make little jabs at the culture surrounding bl

The premise is: Miyano, a fudanshi (boy who reads bl) starts lending one of his senpai (Sasaki) bl after befriending him when he stepped in to stop a fight that was occurring in the back of the school. He starts introducing bl to Sasaki and over time their relationship deepens.

Miyano is an interesting protagonist. Other than being a fudanshi, he has a werid habit of shipping Hirano (his other senpai and fellow member in the disciplinary comittee) with his dorm roommate (which is you know, weird but OK.... he doesn't do it maliciously but Hirano does often scold him for it.)

As stated before, this anime is technically a comedy, but it takes a lot of jabs at some bl tropes. Sometimes a little bit to the point of some maybe cringey moments, but they're not too bad.

You get a lot of moments like these where Miyano will explain bl tropes

Ultimately, Sasaki is the first to realize that he's in love with Miyano, while Miyano spends the series:

• Coming to terms with is sexuality (this series is a slow burn. Which feels PAINFULLY slow at times but the payoff at the end is super sweet.)

• Gaining confidence in his appearance. (This touches upon body dysmorphia a little bit. Which I did not expect at all)

Sasaki spends the series wanting to be open about his affection towards Miyano, since he is the first to confess very early on in the series, but wanting to make sure that Miyano is given all the time to think about his confession.

He doesn't want to push Miyano into giving his answer right away but he also is learning to control his feelings of jealousy towards him (something he admits he has a problem with but knows he shouldn't act on because it's incredibly rude of him and he doesn't want to hurt Miyano.) Sasaki's arc centers around consent but also not pressuring Miyano into a relationship.

I'm gonna talk a little bit about some of the stuff this series tackles (sometimes nicely, sometimes a little messy)

BL tropes and fudanshi/fujoshi culture shock

As mentioned before, this anime talks a lot about bl tropes and terms. As shown before Miyano often explains what different tropes exist as well as explaining preferences one might have in this genre of manga. (and again, this sometimes feels a little embarrassing to watch as a viewer but Miyano is very passionate about the different types of tropes that exist as well as talking a lot about why one would prefer one trope over another etc)

A lot of these moments are played for laughs but are often followed up with the characters mentioning that what one likes in BL =/= What someone wants irl.

This is especially the case when another character, Ogasawara, is having a meltdown over his girlfriend being a fujoshi and kind of has an internal crisis of whether or not his gf actually likes him or if his gf just wants him to be in a relationship with another guy. (Something both his own gf and Miyano reassure him that is NOT the case but uhh this guy is a bit of a dense idiot. He very much loves his gf tho despite their looney tunes ass relationship. )

Honestly a lot of these moments happen with Ogasawara assuming anyone into BL treat the tropes in BL as fact rather than fiction (despite, once again, the characters telling him outright that they don't.)

I could put way more screenshots of him having a meltdown over his gf but then half this post would be about Ogasawara and tbh, watch the anime for his uhhh interesting reactions to the types of manga his gf keeps around.

Body Dysmporphia

This series tackles body dysmorphia a bit, not perfectly but It's nice hearing it from the protag himself about how he feels about others complementing him by calling his features girly or feminine.

He states multiple times that he hates it. He has self confidence issues about his height, his frame, and face, having changed his appearance in the past to try and hide his features.

Initially Sasaki makes a comment about this which leads Miyano to have some doubts about Sasaki's feelings about him. Thankfully, Sasaki apologizes to him about it as well as reassure him that he'd continue to like him even if he got taller and lost his delicate face.

During some of the episodes for their school culture fair, There is a plot point of Miyano's classmates initially pressuring him into cross dressing for them in order to win a competition between the other classes.

I will admit, the addition of this plot point kind of rubbed me the wrong way after having an arc with Miyano talking about being very sensitive about his appearance.

At one point Sasaki corners him about it, being upset for him believing he is doing something he doesn't want to do. Miyano comes to the realization that he doesn't mind cross dressing this time because he wants to help his classmates and that Sasaki has helped him work through this issue. That despite doing this once, he's still a guy and does not think of himself of being feminine.

Again I think it was meant to be uplifting in Miyano finally being at peace with his appearance, but it does feel a little... weird. Luckily it's not treated as a joke and his classmates don't make fun of him for it, but it's still not quite the best. I kind of would have rather had him outright refuse but oh well.

Later on (in the manga) Miyano does get one last form of closure about his appearance in the form of his former middle school crush apologizing to him.

(also sorry for not taking as many screenshots during this episode, but i didn't feel like they were as necessary in this case.)

Homosexuality and being in the closet

This series does touch upon what it's like to like the same sex (well obviously, it's a bl) in a way I didn't expect from what is supposed to be a comedy series.

We get a bit of it from Sasaki himself who kind of works through his feelings very quickly. For Miyano though, the answer isn't so clear to him

He takes (a painfully long) time to determine whether his feelings are the same as Sasaki's or not. He doesn't want to hurt Sasaki in case it turns out he doesn't feel the same way, often wondering whether or not he can really like him back when he had a crush on a girl in middle school.

He often goes to his friends for advice about it and to be honest, none of the characters in the series seem shocked of appalled at the existence of same sex couples. When Ogasawara is introduced, the anime starts setting up this scenario as if he has an issue with Sasaki being so open about reading the bl Miyano had been lending him only for him to have no issue with that specifically (He's actually just afraid he's fujoshi fodder for his gf.)

No one in this world seems to be shocked or against the idea of two guys dating, never once do they hide their relationship or keep it secret, everyone just is okay with it, which is kind of refreshing not to have the "we now have to deal with homophobic classmates" trope that exists in bl a lot.

Much later in this series (after Miyano and Sasaki start dating) we get this super sweet scene between Miyano and his mother after he very nonchalantly comes out to her (this was the scene i saw on twitter that got me to watch this show lol)

This is in direct contrast to an earlier scene where one of his senpai, Hanazawa (who had been indirectly encouraging him to realize his feelings), who is very heavily implied to be gay and having had a crush on Miyano previously, hiding his sexuality from not only his friends, but also his family.

He is protective of his brothers because his brothers had previously come out as being gay to their family, but because he didn't realize his own sexuality sooner, he feels pressured to keep it under wraps for his mother's sake. (something that his older brother seems to realize despite Hanazawa denying it)

I'm gonna be honest, this flashback scene made me cry.

As someone who felt guilty (and still do if i'm going to be completely honest) about feeling like you're letting family down for not starting one of your own with kids, man this hurt. I didn't expect this kind of thing at all from this series.

Hanazawa himself is a character I would like to go on and on about (tho not today, i've written too much already) because of how he encourages and is supportive of Miyano and Sasaki's relationship.

He worries for them but still wants them to not be afraid of wanting to be together

I think this stems from his own inability to be himself, he wants his friends to be happy no matter what.

I really hope the manga gives him a happier storyline but it's still ongoing so who knows

There's a few more moments like this but honestly this section is long enough LOL

A few issues that still bother me a little bit in the series but aren't necessarily a deal breaker for me personally

• Miyano sometimes applying bl scenarios to his friends. Again despite him stating multiple times that most people that read bl don't really treat it as fact irl, he still does this occasionally. It's a little silly and very unnecessary for his character imo, especially as he begins to discover his own sexuality. Luckily because of this he starts doing it less.

• Pointing out the cross dressing section again, though in fairness it could have ended up a lot worse.

• Despite a lot of the characters being okay with homosexuality, for some reason no one can wrap their heads around possibly being bi. I think this is just because the series itself is specifically a bl and ultimately it's not like, the main focus but it's very funny seeing Miyano going "but, I had a crush on a girl!" and never once thinking about bisexuality. Again it's not like, the worst thing ever and I don't think the author meant anything by it, but it is a little silly.

• Pacing. While it's not one of the worst romance pacing i've seen (i'm looking at you, specific shoujo mangas) It does feel painfully slow at times when Miyano is on the verge of a breakthrough only for him to pull back. I know it' done because he wants to be 100% absolutely sure that he is in fact, gay, but I also couldn't help but want to shake him a little a few times.

Idk how to end this long ass post

Honestly my verdict: This is a surprisingly sweet series with moments that are deeper than I expect. There's still a lot of goofy moments using classic bl tropes and then flipping them on their head that maybe might put some people off but if you can stand Miyano explaining to someone what an uke and seme is, I think you can handle the rest of the series.

It's not like, the pinnacle of what writing queer stories can be (and again, I don't know how the author identifies themselves nor their sexual orientation, so I won't make any comments about if this series feels like it was written for queer people by queer people or not) but it was enjoyable nonetheless!

I don't think my writing does the series any justice if im being completely honest so if it interests you at all, I think you should watch!