Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi: A Story Review

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Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi revolves around a life of a 25 year old man, Onodera Ritsu, who just entered Marukawa Publishing company. He got assigned to shoujo manga department instead of the literature department he applied for and was told the greatness of the department’s editor-in-chief who saved the department from sinking even lower. But in fact, it was a whole messy department with messy desks and ‘lifeless’ workers when he was introduced there. The editor-in-chief, Takano Masamune, as well as his boss was not as ‘proper’ as Ritsu thought he would be. Morever, Takano sexually harassed him in just the first day of work by kissing him to set an example to a mangaka (manga authors).

But Ritsu never thought that Takano was someone he know and it never occured to him that Takano was his first love back in school at all. In his past, he used to like Saga Masamune, who he always see at the school library and gradually went out with him, but broke up later on because of a one-side misunderstanding. But he never thought that Saga Masamune and Takano Masamune is the same person, and things started to change after they knows each other identity. 

As a manga lover, I had never thought that I would develop interest in a boys relationship genre at all. Basically, I refer them as ‘disgusting’ and because I am straight, that is the other supporting fact that I don’t read those kind of stories, as well as girl and girl relationships. But this title took away my curiosity and quite reluctantly, I started watching and reading this series, and it turned out quite good. Usually, yaoi series are all bullshits and focuses more on its explicit content and the ‘making love’ of the characters, but Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi actually have other good point, which is a story that revolves around a manga publishing company, and how people actually produce manga in reality in Japan. For people who do not have interest in comics might not be interested, but for people who regularly and likes watching manga and anime, they might be interested in how actually manga was produced in Japan, and this point of the series might catch the eyes of some people who observes the story positively, meaning in learning the knowledge of a manga publishing company and not negatively in just knowing the relationships and the ‘explicit contents’.

As for me, I quite liked the story, and regarding the boys love theme, I would have enjoyed it more to full extent if it is not a gay relationship. If it was a male and female relationship, the manga or anime might be a hit, but the author decided to make it different, so what can the readers say?