The Spring 2023 Manga Guide

Golden Sparkle

What's It About? 

Himaru Uehara's first year of high school is off to a good start, minus one problem—he keeps having wet dreams. With only his mom and sister at home—and having skipped health class in middle school—he thinks it means there's something wrong with him. Thankfully, a new friend has just the remedy and teaches Himaru exactly how to deal with those pesky dreams! But his solution only leads to more confusion, and the two find themselves navigating feelings they've never felt before.

Golden Sparkle has story and art by Minta Suzumaru with English translation by translation by Adrienne Beck, lettering and touch-up by Deborah Fisher and Yuan Han. SuBLime released its first volume both digitally and physically on March 14.

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Golden Sparkle is an odd mix of totally believable and naivete fantasy. Himari, one half of the couple the book centers on, is incredibly naïve about all things sexual, largely because he finds girls off-putting (at least in the sexual/romantic sense; he's fine with family), but also because he skipped all of his middle school health classes because they didn't have tests and so weren't academically important. To a degree, I can buy that – it makes sense not to seek out information that has no bearing on your life. But the sheer degree of his innocence is what's jarring: he doesn't even know what kissing is, and since we know he watches movies, that feels like a step too far. It's a disconnect that makes this single-volume title not work nearly as well as it ought to, and that's a shame because it has some very good material otherwise.

The basic plot – which is a little cringy but still normal by romance standards – is that Himari's new best friend Gaku offers to give him the basics when Himari is frightened by the wet dreams he's been having. His dad has been away for work since he was in elementary school, and he doesn't feel comfortable asking his mom or sister what's going on, so Gaku feels like the safest option. Gaku's solution is to bring him home and give him a handjob, explaining that this will stop the wet dreams. Himari's totally on board with it, and things take off from there. Where the story gets good comes after that – Gaku's had some sexual experience with a girl, but despite a string of ex-girlfriends in middle school, he's never actually enjoyed it. With Himari, who has never felt sexual attraction for a woman, things are different, and Gaku realizes that, as he puts it, he likes boys more than girls. Essentially their sexual experimentation is about realizing their own orientations in what feels like a safe relationship, and emotions which have been brewing come to the surface.

This is actually a lovely and sweet story, hidden beneath a stereotypical BL (or just romance) plot. Friends at school completely accept Gaku and Himari as a pair and are distressed when they seem to be fighting, and both boys find real peace in each other. The art is mildly explicit (light censoring, some pubic hair) with Himari's much-vaunted hair living up to the other characters' hype. It might not be my first recommendation for a new BL manga, but it's also one that tries very hard to make its point within the confines of its genre, and that turns out to work decently well.