Reviews for Inside God's Arms: A Room Filled With Love
Back to MangaI just changed the score of this manga from an 8 to a 9, simply because as I read the recently translated chapters, I found myself crying for more. I love all of Nekota Yonezou works, so it's not a surprise that I personally enjoyed this one A LOT, too. The story is an interesting one, to me atleast. I haven't come across one like this before, so being new, I like it a lot. It's different from the normal school yaoi manga's I read, usually it's the gay one that loves his straight friend who turns gay (easily) to be with him. With this one,Roger is depicted to love no one and have sex with anyone that pays him (except for his roommate.) His new roomate, Reno, accepts that he'll have to be out of the room while Roger is having sex, but not for long. Will Roger follow his ways of find a new roommate when things change, or will he stay? ;) I'll let you find out if you haven't read this before!
The art is the one thing I LOVE. It's not one by Nekota Yonezou that I love the most, but it's still amazing. I see comments of people saying it's nothing special, that they hate it even. But it's clean, the characters are all good looking, and none look so similar to the point where you're confused with who's who.
The characters are another thing that I see people complain about, Reno is a cry baby!...Apparently. Yes, he's cried a bit, but why not? He likes to cry.
I enjoy this manga, I enjoy it a lot. I'll combine my enjoyment and overall of this manga in one paragraph by saying; If you haven't read this, or any of Nekota Yonezou works, go read them, now! I can guarantee that you'll like them (given that you read yaoi manga in the first place.)
Maybe because this is a Doujinshi, and a work from Nekota Yonezou that she took up herself, the storyline and plot has a special feeling to it. I also like the character development and the art is nothing for weak hearted people~♥ ( Beware of nosebleeds ! ;D ) It is nowhere near completed right now, but I will still write a review of it so far~ Adult content: First of all this manga is Yaoi, if youre not fond of Boys Love scenes it is nothing for you. There are also rape contents/flashbacks, however, its NOT like that kind of manga,where rape is treated like "wrong way of showing love". ( I definitely hate rape = love?! kind of manga )
The storyline starts out with nothing special, but blooms nicely into something unique.
First, the setting is in an all boys school where people have to stay 6 years, its secluded in the mountains, and kinda "elite".
So our main protagonist has a new roommate, whose nickname is "Casanova" , because he is not only stunningly beautiful , but rumored to sell his body to others for money.
From this point, the cold, only caring for money Casanova Roja , and the cheerful Reno start sharing a room
-and though Roja has the principle of never sleeping with roomates, and Reno is actually a straight guy to begin with - how will their feelings for each other develop from now on?
Starting out with the positives: Beautiful art, nicely paced, interesting backstory for the 2nd male lead, and non toxic main couple. Now on to the negatives. *A bit of spoilers* While it does treat rape as if it is a negative thing, there is a time where the mc gets raped and is upset about it for a scene, and then afterwards he just kinda... forgets about it. The other male lead having been raped in the past several times was treated with much more severity and I did appreciate that, but at the same time it did follow the trope of a man getting rapedand then selling his body after. I would also have appreciated if we got more backstory for the main character because he did seem pretty unique as far as male yaoi mc's go, but the problem is that he isnt really as fleshed out as the other male lead.
I did appreciate having the perspective shift to the other male lead instead of only being the mc's, and I can see WHY they shifted perspective, seeing as the relationship seemed to advance a bit fast, and they needed some explanation as to why he warms up so fast to our mc. Im not really sure whether to call this a negative or not, but at the same time, between the time that the mc meets and starts forming all these opinions on the love interest, and when we get the first perspective shift to said love interest, it kinda feels like two different characters. My issue was basically that I couldnt pin down a solid personality and flaws in the 2nd male lead outside of him being willing to do anything to keep other people from hurting our mc.
Well, it’s certainly better than most of yaoi I’ve read. It didn’t make me want to just skip the whole thing right from the start, so that’s already an achievement. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s at least readable. It’s nice that there is some actual plot besides buttfucking, something that makes the characters more than just a cardboard cut-outs of pretty boys, more than just an object to satisfy the readers’ lust. It does have the overplayed trope of going from “yeah I’m straight” through “okay maybe I’m gay” to “I’m totally gay” within few chapters (and don’t get confused by the volume count, theseare doujin volumes so the length of this manga is equivalent to 13 medium-length chapters). Also the even worse “I was raped by a dude and now I sleep with men” cliché. At least this manga portrays rape as something actually bad and doesn’t fetishize it (that much), but it still makes me wonder why it seems like rapey content is the default for yaoi manga.
The art is fine, doesn’t feel low-effort and is without anatomical monstrosities, except maybe for few pages of Roger’s looong chin.
Overall, if you’re into BL you’ll most likely like this, and if you’re not it’s survivable.