Iwaki Kyousuke and Katou Youji
Haru wo Daiteita ("Embracing Love") is a Boys' Love manga by Youka Nitta, which was serialized from 1999 to 2009 in Be x Boy GOLD and compiled into 14 volumes. It was adapted into two OVA's as well as a spin-off series of three OVA's.
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.
This show provides examples of:
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Iwaki once, Katou many many times...
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Arguably Sawa and his family. Due to family pressure, he was initially a very repressed person, so his realization of his cross-dressing tendencies hit him extremely hard. Not to mention his sister was brutally murdered by her husband, something that his nephew Yukihito witnessed which made him mute out of shock. Made even squickier when Sawa officially adopts Yukihito and starts a sexual relationship with him.
- 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.
- Crossover: With Casino Lily, another of Youka Nitta's works. Carlo and Magira appear in Volume 6, when Iwaki and Katou travel to Los Angeles.
- 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 It's You, It's Okay: They aren't attracted to any other men.
- Intertwined Fingers: When they declare their love.
- Intimate Psychotherapy: Towards the beginning of the series when Iwaki is on the verge of a breakdown over his plummeting acting career, Katou offers to have sex with him to help make him feel better. Iwaki accepts, and the sex does help calm Iwaki’s emotions and helps him come to a better understanding of Katou as a person. On Katou’s end, the sex helps him work though his growing feelings of love for Iwaki.
- 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 unwarranted and he didn't deserve to be told.
- Laser-Guided Karma: At the beginning of the series Iwaki is under extreme stress from the threat of Katou's success in his own career, and Katou's frequent taunts about Iwaki's age and lack of career advancements don't help matters. Later flashbacks shown from Katou's perspective, however, revealed that Katou's taunting of Iwaki and his own drive for success were fueled because in the past Katou had extended a hand of genuine friendship to Iwaki and instead received a rather scathing "Reason You Suck" Speech.
- 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 everywhere.
- 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 OVAs.
- 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 Throw It In!, Enforced Method Acting and Reality Subtext).
- In-universe, Winter Cicada is a real story written by the great-granddaughter of Kusaka's nurse Ito based on her great-grandmother's memoirs. This further ties into the plot as it's hinted that both Katou and Iwaki are the reincarnations of Kusaka and Akizuki respectively.
- Replacement Scrappy: In-universe. While filming Winter Cicada, Asano is brought in to replace Yoshizumi as Aizawa after Yoshizumi is seriously injured. Because Yoshizumi was respected by the crew and close friends with Katou and Iwaki—and because both Katou and Iwaki have a tense history with Asano—Asano finds most everyone is incredibly slow to warm up to him.
- 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 OVAs 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 OVAs where paparazzi, tabloids, and talk shows affect the main characters, both positively and adversely.
- Katou doesn't help matters when he correctly assumes that using the media to sell Iwaki and himself as a couple would elevate their status. Asano however tries this as well and doesn't succeed.
- 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 centered around Katou's feelings for Iwaki, Katou wasn't happy.
