Details
Title:
Golden Sparkle
ゴールデンスパークル (Golden Sparkle)
Author: Minta Suzumaru
Artist: Minta Suzumaru
Volumes: 1
Publishers:
SuBLime (English, 2023)
Studio JG (Polish, 2022)
Futekiya (English, 2019)
Homesha (Japanese, 2018)
Naivety Bordering on Asexuality
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
Recently, I’ve been reading short yaoi manga one after the other all day long, which often leads to oversaturation with the said media. You risk encountering similar tropes in different titles that you normally wouldn’t mind, but after reading 6 BLs in a day, you feel like you are in a gay time loop.
Golden Sparke was a 4th BL manga that I read in a weekend with bro(s) offering to jerk each other off, no homo though, well maybe a little homo”, which I found very funny. I could have earned FOUR cents! Hysterical, I know.
What is it? Is it some sickness? Tell me!
The story is from the perspective of Himari, a first-year high school student who grew up in a women-only household. During his adolescence, he began to fear the female population in general, as it turns out, girls are only human and can be mean and awful just like boys.
For this reason, Himari decided to attend a male-only high school and put on a more delinquent persona to the outside world. Due to this little twist of circumstances, he never really got a proper sex education, leaving him oblivious to why he wakes up with dirty pants in the mornings. Enter Gaku, his new friend at school, who offers to lend a (hmm) helping hand to teach Himari all about his unexplored sexuality.
You have no qualms about touching other people’s willies.
I say it with as much respect as I can, but you need to suspend your disbelief for most of the manga really hard, because how do you explain a teenager who doesn’t think to Google anything that troubles him? And I’m not even talking about checking out pornography or not knowing you may be non-heteronormative, but rather about your health concerns that are just a web search away from being explained.
Throughout the manga, I had a smirking face expression with one eyebrow raised, thinking, “Really? Sure, Jan.” Himari’s obvious innocence made me wonder if we were entering asexuality territory (I am ace myself!), probably despite the author’s intent. It turns out sometimes boys are just stupid, and this case isn’t an exception, but a reaffirmation of the rule, so to speak.
Practice makes perfect.
Hence enters the trope of a friend helping his bro alleviate the stress, which I find a little silly but very endearing to some extent. Gaku is more experienced in this relationship, but Himari doesn’t let that stop his learning streak (HA!).
There is a good balance of humour and youngster shenanigans exploring their bodies, as well as the vulnerability of budding emotions in a harsh reality of social homophobia. The excellent art by Suzumaru-san never disappoints, making it a fantastic read altogether.
The English edition has been published and printed by Viz’s BL division, SuBLime. I usually have no qualms with their releases, except for mediocre paper quality, so English fans can definitely enjoy this edition. In the Futekiya’s digital release, I see none of the SFXs were removed which I always consider a lazy approach. I obtained the Polish edition from Studio JG, as it was released a year before the printed English edition. While both are pocketbook formats, the Polish release has much better paper quality and a dust jacket that hides additional art with character descriptions.
I know that I may sound like a broken record with the paper quality in my reviews, but if you collect manga for almost 20 years, you realise how crucial white paper quality is to maintaining your collection in the best shape. I didn’t know about the yellowing manga problem until I moved abroad! At worst glue holding a spine together would fall apart, but pages were like brand new if you kept your comics in a normal environment. But I digress.
If you’re looking for a light read with gay teenagers exploring their feelings and bodies, Minta Suzumaru has you covered. With excellent art and enjoyable characters, it’s no surprise that it was one of her first works published in English-speaking markets. I am halfway through reviewing all manga I own from this author, so please look forward to more!
