I read Bad Boys Happy Home because of a drag queen

 

So normally, the books and manga that I read come courtesy of me finding them through social media or from those tabs on websites that are like “Readers who enjoy X might also enjoy Y”. This one falls under the social media side, and normally, it’s from my book Twitter I find them, but this… this came from drag queen Evah Destruction. Literally, on Christmas Day she tweeted out “BL manga suggestions GO” and then I went through the replies because I was like “Hmm I would like suggestions”. Anyway, that was a long-winded way of me saying this post is about Bad Boys Happy Home that I saw in the replies to the Evah Destruction tweet because someone said it was only three volumes and a complete story.

Anyway, when they arrived, they were in a plastic wrap which I have since learned means that there is R-rated content in there and the plastic wrap stops people in stores from just being accidentally exposed to it. I know it’s a basic thing, but considering I never really read manga until recently, it was something that never even crossed my mind. Still, you get books that have sex scenes in them, so it’s not like the sex scenes and nudity in manga was something that was going to deter me. It’s just one of those things where I like to know what I’m getting into, and I did with this manga.

But yeah, there is a content warning I’d like to give. This manga does include SA. I’ll mention it now, so if that’s not something you want to even consider, maybe give this a miss.

The blurb, or what is in place of the blurb, says that sometimes all it takes is a good fistfight to find true love. Life sucks, and high school bad boy Akamatsu needs an outlet for his pent-up frustrations. Seven, a homeless guy living in a nearby park, is just the outlet Akamatsu is looking for. Soon, he finds himself heading to the park every day just to pick a fight, even though he never wins. So when Seven ends up kicked out of his favourite sleeping spot, Akamatsu decides there’s only one possible solution to retain his fighting partner – invite Seven home to live with him. I love a concept, and this has one. Quite a simple one, but you don’t always need everything to be complicated.

Given that this is a story told in three volumes of manga, was I expecting it to be that deep (especially since there were going to be sex scenes involved)? No. I feel like this is one of those things where my expectations would play a part in how I both perceived it and how good I thought it was. I will immediately say I wasn’t expecting the most gut-wrenching or life-changing thing out of this.

Anyway, the first chapter has Akamatsu turning up to the park where Seven legit just lives. And the long and short of it is that someone reports a homeless person in the area, so the pipes that Seven was sleeping in get removed and then he has nowhere to go. Akamatsu can’t stop thinking about Seven after getting clarted a few times and then invites Seven to use his washer, because for some reason he lives alone, despite just being in high school. You also see in these first few chapters that Akamatsu isn’t talking to his mum – you do actually find out in the first volume that it’s because he’s into guys and his dad found out, so that’s why he left home. Even though he was just a ball of hormones and just wanted to fight, he seemed to be a nice enough person.

In these early chapters, it seems like Seven ran away from home and that’s why he’s out on the street and there’s moments where he’s trying to avoid people looking for him. And there’s this bit where it’s fully just slapstick in the middle of this mall while he’s trying to avoid the people. I hate to say it, it was fun to read. I will also say, despite not really expecting either of the characters to be that deep, I was actually quite surprised to see the amount of back story the both of them managed to be given in the first volume alone. I guess since there’s no real plot to the manga, that does leave space for character building, and I was pleasantly surprised by this. Although, as the manga goes on, I did feel like Seven got more than Akamatsu did, but I think that was down to the nature of what actually happens.

You do end up seeing more back story as the manga goes on. In volume two, erm, things went a bit wild I won’t lie. You see more into the backstory of Seven, as this character, Eight (his step brother), turns up, and you find out the kind of world that they’re involved in. It was one of those moments where it went from zero to a hundred really quickly. I wouldn’t say it’s dark, but it is kind of. It’s intense, I can say that. Probably not for the meek, I’ll say. Or for the people who are just wanting a wholesome love story – this isn’t the most wholesome thing out there. It’s very traumatic childhood-core because the people who raised Seven and Eight were involved basically in some kind of mafia, I didn’t quite understand what it was the mafia was doing. I sort of understood, but I did kind of feel like there were bits I missed. That may have been the case. It could have been on the pages, and I somehow skimmed over it, I’m not 100% sure. Then again, it could have had something to do with the fact there were only three volumes, so maybe the story didn’t have the chance to get as deep as it could have.

This was also pretty typical for the other mangas I’ve read in that the side characters didn’t get much expansion. Although, there weren’t really that many, I did find myself confused as to who was who a couple of times. Akamatsu had his brother and a friend who popped up from time to time, and Seven had his step brother, Eight – they were the ones I definitely knew. But I suppose since the story of this was pretty simple, it made sense that those characters didn’t get all that much focus. The only one that really did get any expansion was Eight, and that was down to the fact that he was pretty important to the events later in the manga whereas the others weren’t.

I think this manga could maybe have benefitted from perhaps another volume between the actual volumes two and three. I’m not saying that something is missing, because a full story gets told from start to finish, I’m saying this because Akamatsu and Seven get separated, not going to spoil how, but they get separated, and I think it would have been even better had there been that additional volume that could have given an in depth show of what the two were doing when not together. You got a little bit, but it was just the two of them moping around. You might see this as a negative point, but the point I’m actually making with it is that I just wanted more content, that’s literally it.

And I think finally, the end of volume three, specifically the second half… let’s just call it camp. I say camp because the main story came to its conclusion part way through the volume, and then it just seemed like the people who did the story just went off the rails and started doing whatever they wanted. I wouldn’t say it was bad. Again, just camp – odd too. It did make me laugh at parts, so I can’t complain and say I didn’t like it when I clearly did. A good way I can describe it (I’m adding this bit after finishing the rest of the post) is that you know how some BL series get special episodes after the series finishes? The last half of the third volume felt like the special episode of a BL series, but specifically, like one of the ones where nothing important happens.

Okay, bye!