Just a short intro I decided to start doing some short reviews for various BL manga out there just cause. Hope to make this a regular thing. The beauty of short BL manga is that I can briefly cover all the chapters. Please know that that means that there will be spoilers. Also sorry about the length. When I go I go hard. Ok so lets start off. Welcome to Romantic Love Insect Poison. Now when I first picked up this title I wont lie that it was the main cover that drew my attention. Lets examine that for a bit. Look at this beauty this Majesty 300https://i.ur.com/6oGAwY4.jpg Now we all know the common joke of the BL manga industry of terrible body proportions. But this cover particularly grabbed my interest just Look at this shit. His hand is like the size of this tiny boys forearm. Would probably kill him if he holds him too hard. COVER ASIDE WERE HERE TO TALK ABOUT STORY. RIGHT So the story starts off with these two Japanese Honey Bees named Honey and Bee OHOHOHO SO CLEVER falling asleep in this random spiders den cause this seemed like a good plan of action and they say that this is the only place they can stay cause they got kicked out by the Queen Bee. Or something. Honestly I wasnt paying much attention due to the pain. Normally I dont get a headache this early in a story but the way that the bees were portrayed just really hurt me. So our main spider for the sake of my bad memory I will just call him SpiderMan allows the bees to stay with him cause his Praying Mantis roommate convinces him. Mantis friend also explains that SpiderMan doesnt eat bugs which just really makes you wonder what exactly he eats to like you know stay alive??? NO TIME FOR THAT THO. Cue to the bees having congrats to finding a new place to live sex. Cause yeah of course theyre a couple because of course they are. 300https://i.ur.com/xKK5sOl.jpg In every chapter they also have some Fun Bug Facts. Like I know the author has a fascination with this all but the visuals of these two small bees just up and having sexing front of SpiderMan is messing with me just a tad. Moving on the bees are here for like 5 seconds or whatever but then they accidentally rip a tapestry or something that the spider has hanging right by his bed. SpiderMan is pissed at these bees wrecking his shit so he kicks them out immediately. As SpiderMan tries to repair it the Praying Mantis is just like They might die tho AND JUST AS THAT HAPPENED HONEY AND BEE COME UNDER ATTACK So for some reason these two male bees who are unneeded in the hive anymore are being attacked by female bees from the hive because we needed conflict? Normally when you toss trash out you dont go out and start kicking the bin on the side of the curb but whatever you do you. So of course our hero SpiderMan comes in and manages to bind all the female bees up in his webs and uh I think the mantis kills them? They really dont make it clear what happens to them. Maybe they eat them? shrugs The chapter legit just ends here. They all go home and then the bees go and have some more sex off screen. Oh also he fixed the tapestry somehow cause idk hes a spider and has magic sewing powers so there was like legit no reason to get so angry at the bees but WE NEEDED CONFLICT. Time for the next chapter tho. So here in Chapter 2 we get into SpiderMans back story a bit more. Flash back to Not Too Long Ago when SpiderMan was having some trouble finding food cause of some heavy rains or something. There he finds that a lone Butterfly got stuck in his web. Upon seeing SpiderMan tho the butterfly freaks out and ends up accidentally tearing one wing off their wings hang off their heads for some reason. No I dont get it SpiderMan nurses the butterfly back to good health and promises to not eat him cause it was Love At First Sight. Wow you can feel the emotion just leaking off the page. Then like two weeks later maybe two ladybug kids get stuck in the web as well but the butterfly begs SpiderMan to not eat them cause theyre just children. Butterfly saying SpiderMan should just eat him if hes so hungry. SpiderMan swears to not eat them either and then he finally goes in and lays one on his Butterfly beau. 300https://i.ur.com/NSt7ugv.jpg AND THEN FCKING IMMEDIATELY ANOTHER SPIDER BREAKS INTO THE DEN. For the sake of this review I will call him Venom pls dont leave. Anyway Venom grabs a hold of Mary Jane Midori the Butterfly while also choking the rando Ladybug twins. Midori tells SpiderMan to just forget about him and save the kids. SpiderMan does so but while hes off doing that Venom tears off Midoris remaining wing and uh Disappears. He just goes away leaving SpiderMan crying into Midoris wing which he turns into a tapestry and hangs by his bed. If you ask me Id say this is very morbid and disturbing but who am I to kink shame. So going to the present time in Chapter 3 we find the Praying Mantis messing with the Ladybug twins. No of course I didnt bother learning their names. Moving on they bond with the bees or whatever and talk about boring stuff. Not much really happens here. Just filler. Chapter 4 and were out of the Spiders Den and now following this rando human whos badly photosensitive allergic to the sun essentially. He laments about how much he hates summer cause he cant go outside. Then suddenly a random naked man appears in his room with an ugly boa thing and with only a cloth to cover his junk claiming to be a cicada. 300https://i.ur.com/i1RmAgw.jpg Im just gonna sum up this chapter Fast for all our sakes. The kids mom is fine with this exhibitionist randomly showing up in her sons room. The cicada then tells him that hes going to die in 2 weeks so they need to mate fast. Cicada man also explains that he fell in love with our new protagonist because while burrowed near his window during his larvae stages he heard him bitching and moaning about how much he hates summer for the past 5 years and he FELL IN LOVE SUPER HARD. And no they dont explain How he turned into a human. Were just supposed to accept this and move on. The kid is reluctant cause he doesnt even have friends. Time goes by and as they deadline is nearing they go to a festival or whatever with each other and the cicada suddenly collapses. So they go back to the kids place and finally have sex. Now the thing is they keep stressing that the cicada is gonna die but they never address what is gonna happen to his body. Does he turn back into a cicada? Does he stay human and leave the poor kid with a body to clean up and dispose of? WHO CARES?? THE AUTHOR SURE DOESNT. Anyway after the cicada goes and dies the protagonist learns how to make friends and finally enjoy summer. He now goes outside at night to hang with others. His growth was nice to see in this garbage fire. So after those two chapters of a distraction we return back to the Spider Den where the kiddos pull in an arm. Like just a disembodied arm. Turns out it belongs to a Walking Stick bug and that hes Also the ex boyfriend of the Praying Mantis. Yes of course he was also gay. Was there ever any doubt? Anyway they like fight a bit about their previous break up but I think they reconcile. I dont really know. He was just here basically to pass on info that GASP Some stuff happens and then SpiderMan swoops in Amazing. Ugh. Ok heading into the next couple. Were almost there Now heres the part of the manga where the author tries to redeem the main villain by humanizing him and giving him his own love interest. 300https://i.ur.com/4U1tM7u.jpg He gets his own Shouta Spider to fuck and realize what Love is. How Quaint. This story is boring however and is as predictable as youd expect. Forgive me for getting bored at this point but I didnt care much for this couple. Possibly because the couple was just so shoehorned into existence. I guess nice for Venom to get a boyfriend? The final chapter of this volume not including the Extra chapter cause dont worry I plan to tear that one apart as well would be one where a dude just moves into an apartment in Tokyo or something and theres a cockroach living there. Now the great thing about this roach is that its all alone so theres no infestation on this apartment but also hes a cute twink so this dude got at least some attractive ass to pound. The cockroach has some issues with humans tho cause like cockroaches are gross and I cant think of any sane person that would want to romance one. Thankfully the dude that moves in is totally fine with the idea or fucking this roach. Behold some more bad anatomy: 300https://i.ur.com/gbj2jGm.jpg Anyway they live happily ever after together and move to Okinawa for the sake of the roach. So that was all the main stories. Now for the extra chapter All I have to say for this is HOLY SHIT WHAT WAS THIS?? Ok so I have this personal vendetta against authors writing in random plot contrivances to solve situations or write themselves into a story for the sake of Character Interaction. Like keep that shit for doodles or something your social media account but not for a published release. I know its silly to ask for something realistic from something that involves Ikemen Bugs buttfucking but just for the sake of immersion dont break the fourth wall. See my problem here mostly lies with the two extra couples with the Cicada and the Cockroach. What I should start with first I guess would be that the author CREATED THIS GOD THAT JUST FLIES TO EVERY COUPLE AND FIXES THINGS??? Like no reason. Just to make you feel better for all these characters you totally felt so hard for. I dont know. My brain died back in chapter 2 but I had to keep on trucking. And now for the worst of this Gods work. Fuck this God and fuck this author for doing this. FINALLY DONE. Now onto my final verdict for this whole collection Story 3/10 Because it was kinda a collection of short stories I just took the grades I gave each story and then listed the average. For individual scores Id say they were like this: SpiderMan x Butterfly: 4/10 It was ok. Bland but not terrible. If anything the bees were the worse part of it. That and the Walking Stick that did nothing. Cicada x Allergy Kid: 3/10 You know this couldve gotten a higher score. If only it werent for that extra chapter. Venom x Shouta Spider: 3/10 This felt like a rushed story just for the author to draw more fucking. Also calling out bullshit how the only spider we get to see have sex is the evil one not our PROTAGONIST ON THE FRONT COVER OF THIS SHIT but I digress. Business Man x Cockroach: 2/10 This had no reason to exist. But theyre happy together so whatever I guess. Art 3/10 As you can see from the images littering this page the art is nothing to really behold. The author gets their ideas across but there are a lot of things that I wish were maybe shown or explained. Oh and the proportions get me dead too so Low Score There Friend. Characters 5/10 To be honest the characters were all so bland for me. Like the romances never really touched my heart. Not that I hated anyone in particular I just didnt Care In conclusion: It was Meh. One way to pass the time thats for sure... written by Whim