Love Stage!!

Sena Izumi is born into a family of entertainers. He is the second son of a female actress and a male singer, and his brother is the vocalist of a popular band. But Izumi does not want to go into show business and instead wants to become a manga artist even if he doesn't have the talent for it. He was traumatized in a commercial shoot ten years ago where he dressed as a little girl. In that shoot, his parents were the newly married couple while Izumi and a then-child star Ichijou Ryouma were the young pair who caught the bouquet.

That same commercial will soon have a follow-up involving  grownups Izumi and Ryouma. The problem is, Izumi does not want to do it because he has to dress up as a girl. He was eventually lured by his brother Shougo to do the commercial and agreed that only the staff will know about his true identity. Little does Izumi know that Ryouma has been looking forward to this reunion. Ryouma is clearly in love with the little girl he met at the shoot ten years ago and has no idea that the girl was a boy after all.

Young Ryouma Ichijou and Sena Izumi in a commercial shoot

Grownups Izumi and Ryouma

The first episode is a giveaway that Love Stage!! is a boys love series, so if you're not into this genre you have been warned.

Love Stage!! perhaps has one of the best introductions among the shounen ai and yaoi series I have seen. It doesn't follow the formula of "instant lovers" within the first few episodes. Instead the lead characters have a history that makes some sense. Neither Izumi nor Ryouma also have a tragic past where their views of gender and sexuality were changed, a common theme in other series.

This ten-episode series is funny and romantic but it isn't just a series for the sake of showing two boys falling in love. Izumi has a predicament of his own outside his romance problems.

One of the notable differences from other series of this genre as well is the presence of parents of one of the lead characters. Usually the parents are omitted in romance series unless they have a role in the tragic past of one of the characters. The presence of Izumi's parents makes it a bit closer to reality instead of making up an excuse story where one of them is an orphan or an estranged child.

Love Stage!! has plenty of new things to offer but doesn't lack the elements that made shounen ai an interesting genre.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10