Haru wo Daiteita



Haru wo Daiteita is a Boys Love serialization in fourteen volumes of manga and two OVA's as well as a spin-off series of three OVA's, written by mangaka Youka Nitta.

The series centers around two adult film porn actors and their Uke/Seme relationship as they deal with the pressures of acting, set locations, paparazzi, and making their relationship work.

As of July 2010, all 14 volumes of the manga are available for Kindle by Animate USA.

This show provides examples of:

 * Anguished Declaration of Love: Iwaki once, Katou many many times...
 * Boys Love Genre: somewhat unusual in that it tends to subvert the Uke/Seme relationship and is somewhat more hard-lined/realistic in its depiction of men in gay relationships.
 * Bridal Carry: Katou carries Iwaki on the first night in their new home.
 * Crazy Jealous Guy: Katou can drift into this territory when Iwaki is concerned. And he tends to react badly if anyone hurts him.
 * Even the Guys Want Him: Iwaki gets this constantly by both men who are essentially straight, and by gay men. This, of course, causes Katou to be very paranoid about every guy he meets, and sends him into Crazy Jealous Guy mode more than once (although admittedly he gets a lot better as time goes on)
 * He's Not My Boyfriend: Iwaki tends to be in denial about his and Katou's relationship, and hates the fact that Katou milks it in the media for all its worth.
 * If Its You Its Okay: They aren't attracted to any other men.
 * Intertwined Fingers: When they declare their love.
 * Jerkass: Iwaki's brother, Masahiko. He and Iwaki's mother was dying and he felt that ringing Iwaki's agent when he changed his home phone number was un-warranted and he didn't deserve to be told.
 * Moment Killer: Katou has a gift for saying the wrong things at exactly the wrong time.
 * Nice Job Breaking It Hero: Kato has a couple of these. The biggest instance was when he passed on a movie script on a whim... and then decided he did want to do it, and derailed his entire career (including severely pissing off his agency) in order to do so.
 * Out of Genre Experience: There are a couple instances where the plot sidelines into something different. Sometimes it's justifiable, where it's a Show Within a Show that Katou or Iwaki are participating in, so It Makes Sense in Context, but sometimes it just doesn't. The most obvious example is the Winter Cicada story, which jumps to a Meiji-era historical drama - okay, fine ... except for the fact that in-universe it actually happened and the two main characters are apparently pre-reincarnations of Katou and Iwaki. And then there was a weird point in volume 6 where Katou's older brother who died in childbirth is haunting Katou and Iwaki and Youko, Katou's sister, who is currently pregnant with her first child and going through childbirth difficulties. Have fun figuring out where that fits in the grand scheme of things.
 * Paparazzi: Urushizake, who admires and follows Katou just about everwhere.
 * Porn With Plot: Given the profession of the two main characters, the manga is fairly explicit. The storyline is engaging, though, and works well even in the much tamer OVA's.
 * Rape Is Love: harshly inverted and deconstructed. Miyasaka
 * Real Life Writes the Plot: quite a few times in-universe where something happens to change the way a film or tv-show the two protagonists are in develops, and how the actors and crew have to adapt to it (includes a couple of cases of Absentee Actor, Throw It In, Enforced Method Acting and Reality Subtext).
 * Show Within a Show: One of the subplots circles around both Katou and Iwaki on the same movie set. The movie Winter Cicada became a separate series of three OVA's by the same mangaka.
 * Stalker With a Crush: Urushizake who started off as being a scarily obsessed fan of Katou and then became a member of the Paparazzi to make money off his stalking, stating - basically - that if he's going to do a job he might as well combine it with his interests. Yes, if you're a paparazzi, stalking is fine.
 * Tabloid Melodrama: There are situations in both the manga and OVA's where paparazzi, tabloids, and talk shows affect the main characters, both positively and adversely.
 * The Thing That Goes Doink: In the second OVA.
 * Unsettling Gender Reveal: Katou and Iwaki initially mistake Sawa for a woman. Katou figures out that he's not, but Iwaki only realises when Sawa tells him... he's pretty shocked, to say the least.
 * Wholesome Crossdresser: Nagisa Sawa-san.
 * Write Who You Know and Write What You Know: An in-universe example. Nagisa Sawa likes to use first-hand experience in his novels and movies. Hence why he decided to use actual AV actors in his first movie, and why his second book literally has an entire conversation that he had with Katou in it word for word. Considering it centred around Katou's feelings for Iwaki, Katou wasn't happy.