And I am now done with 異世界美少女受肉おじさんと(14) (×裏少年サンデース) | L26, the last volume published so far, and that one felt amazing. I read half of it before bed, which was a mistake, because I couldn’t stop thinking about it and just gave in at 2am and finished it.
This volume in particular contained a lot of elements I just never see in seinen manga (or just manga in general).
There was (heavy spoilers)
- Equal opportunities fan service. Sure, it is still biased towards showing women, but the precepts of the Goddess of Love and Beauty say that everyone should show their beauty, and the author has been delivering on that throughout the series.
- Speaking of beauty, there is a discussion about alternative expressions of beauty through a group of women who are into fitness and bodybuilding. I loved that it was treated seriously, not as a joke. The leader of that group gets a well fleshed out love storyline with [really heavy spoiler] 橘(
) [normal level spoiler]and even wins the beauty pageant organized in the name of the Goddess (again, not as a joke, not only does her dress fits her really well, her performance is really great too). - Speaking of [heavy spoiler again; not specific to this volume, though] 橘(), and by extension 神宮寺(
), there is a great discussion about gender, [heavy spoilers contd.] with 橘 figuring out that 橘() is how she wants to be. She might have lived her whole life as a guy if not isekai’d, but she can’t unlearn the way she felt as a woman. Meanwhile, 神宮寺 never changed his feelings about his own gender (and indeed his behavior was consistent with that), which resolves a gripe I had before (橘 seeming too comfortable with a female body; it was foreshadowing, not a plot hole). - That discussion ends with 橘’s renewed confession and the series secondary title (catchphrase?) drop (この漫画はおっさんと元おっさんのラブコメです). I cried.
- No but seriously, between that and other stuff in the volume, I went through a whole box of tissues. I am still crying as I type this.
There’s a lot more, actually, but I think that’s enough spoilers for now. I know people click on those, but I just had to get it out of my system.
Overall, I feel like I often say “it was too little too late”, but in this specific instance, I feel like it’s more “it was late”. I don’t think the topic at hand will resonate with everyone and, despite being justified, there’s still a lot of fan service, so it’s hard to just recommend willy-nilly, but I’m glad I read this series. Next volume comes out next month, too!
Edit: looks like I have to thank @Athakaspen for that. Speaking of which:
The anime only covers the first 4-ish volumes. There’s a lot more to this series.
