Kanda and Ueno seem like complete opposites: the charming Kanda is the superstar of the sales department, while the stern Ueno is a well-known stickler in accounting. But over time, the unlikely pair have become good friends outside of work. One day, while Kanda is crashing at Ueno's place as he often does, Ueno confesses that he's gay--but says Kanda isn't his type, in case Kanda was wondering. The news makes Kanda see their closeness in a new light. Should he stop casually touching Ueno all the time? But also...why is he so bothered that Ueno isn't into him? Maybe one of them will act on the attraction growing between them!

Can You Kiss Me First? has story by and art by Yamayade. English translation is done by Elina Ishikawa. Lettering by Jaewon Ha. Published by Seven Seas Entertainment (September 29, 2026). Rated M.

Content warning: dubcon

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

How many romances have you read where you wanted to scream at the characters, “Oh my god, just talk to each other!”? Lack of meaningful conversation is a shortcut to romantic tension in a lot of fiction and it is almost always incredibly annoying. Can You Kiss Me First? doesn't go that route, or at least, not in the typical way. Kanda and Ueno do talk to each other, all the time. They just are avoiding talking about the one thing that matters the most to both of them: their relationship.

Both of them would like to move from just friends to dating, and both are equally afraid to cross that line for most of the book. Ueno is openly gay (at least to a select few; his sexuality is pretty much an open secret at the office), and he's had bad luck falling for straight men before. Kanda has never been attracted to a man before Ueno, and he's not quite sure how to break the ice and have Ueno believe him. While we can read this as something relatively typical in BL – the “gay for you” trope – it's more interesting to examine it in a different light, as Kanda learning that sexuality can be fluid and being willing to roll with it. He doesn't have any crises about his attraction to and love for Ueno that are specifically about having fallen for another man; his only concern is losing Ueno because of an assumption that it simply won't work. (Or, horrors, that he might not feel the same way.) And Ueno's worries about his feelings for Kanda come from a similar place of being afraid to drive him away altogether because of a bad experience in his own past. Everything they do is in the name of preserving their relationship and fear of it not working. Their own anxiety isn't so much preventing them from talking as it is preventing them from hearing.

And it doesn't help that Kanda first makes his move after he's been out drinking. Liquid courage has its downsides when it comes to making yourself fully understood, and there's a dubcon element to their first sexual encounter that's not great.

I'm not sure that I would classify this as a slow burn. The love the two men feel for each other is there in every panel they share, whether at the office or hanging out in Ueno's apartment. But they don't get together until the end of the book, which gives it the appearance of being a slower burn than it actually is. But whatever you want to call it, this is a good story about two people finding their way to each other, learning to listen and to trust what they each have to say.

Bolts
Rating:

It can be difficult navigating a relationship between two men that are incredibly close with differing sexual identities. I respect the fact that this manga has an openly gay protagonist who carries a lot of trauma from getting too close to people who don't immediately identify in a similar way. Sometimes sexuality can be a spectrum or people don't fully know what they are until they actually give it a try. However, if those situations are not handled gracefully, and with a lot of communication, it could leave deep rooted emotional scars that could potentially affect future relationships. When Ueno starts developing feelings for his openly straight coworker Kanada, who has been spending a lot of time at his place, those fears start bubbling up as he's reminded of a past relationship that fell apart when somebody wanted to explore.

Inversely, Kanada has already begun questioning his own sexuality. He wants to physically and emotionally lean on Ueno more, but both of them are terrified of crossing that line for the sake of ruining that relationship due to their own established traumas. I like this story because of how realistic it is. You don't need to be a specific type of sexuality to relate to this idea of past relationships informing the fear of getting close to anybody in the present. Naturally, the answer comes down to good old open communication, but it's hard to cross that line sometimes under fear of being hurt and I appreciate the fact that the presentation goes out of its way to get me in the mindset of the characters to fully establish the roots of that trauma.

This makes the sex scenes feel a bit more earned compared to other stories because not only are they intense, but they also act as definitive turning points in both of the main characters' personal journeys. This isn't just sex being built up for the sake of enjoyment, it's sex that's being built up for the sake of affirmation. This is definitely one of the best boys' love stories that I think I have read for this guide and I wholeheartedly recommend it as a complete experience that makes use of everything that's available.