Manga Review | Having My Favorite in the Middle of the Night by Tsutako Tsurusawa

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Warning:

This review will contain spoilers for the and anime series Having My Favorite in the Middle of the Night. While the manga may vary slightly from all other forms of media, it may have similar story elements and could be considered spoilers.

Trigger Warning: There may be references to drugging, rape due to drugging, unsafe sex, manipulation, obsession, , and cheating, as it appears in the manga.

Synopsis:

Grim is a radio host. He spends his evenings reading letters over the airwaves, answering questions, and sharing stories of his own life. He’s perfectly content with the easy-going lifestyle he’s cultivated for himself. However, his simple life gets a little bit more hectic after being invited to a party with all manner of entertainers, including , , and the like. Grim is already looking for his escape when he meets renowned star Masachika.

As it turns out, Masachika is a massive fan of Grim’s radio show. Anyone would be happy to hear that, including Grim, but Masachika seems to be more interested in Grim than his radio show. While Grim is flattered, he’s not interested in anything with a young man like Masachika. He’s all too happy to escape back to his quiet life, but Masachika is much more tenacious than Grim gave him credit for. Can Grim keep his distance, or will Masachika lure him into an inescapable trap?

Review:

This is the third entry of a series. The other titles are Saving My Favorite for Last (1st) and A Stomachful of Secret Delights (2nd).

This is the best art of the entire series thus far. It’s much cleaner overall, which makes it much more enjoyable to look at. More importantly, it has my favorite character in the entire series: Grim. He has all of my favorite physical attributes, being that he is tall, beautiful, and has long, dark hair… yeah. He’s everything. I personally think this is worth reading just for him, but I am incredibly biased in that regard. Grim is stunning. Masachika is pretty, too, of course. Still, he looks a lot like every other character we’ve seen since he is related to characters from the first entry in this series, so he’s less interesting in comparison to Grim.

Cover art for Having My Favorite in the Middle of the Night by

Beyond his looks, though, Grim’s personality is great. He’s very chill with a bit of a bite when it comes to Masachika. He’s very down-to-earth, which I love. Grim might be my perfect man, but he’s a bottom, which is unfortunate for me (I love that for him, though). Enough about my obsession with Grim, though. Let’s talk about Masachika. I am not a fan of Masachika at all. He’s an obsessive top, which isn’t bad. Some of my favorite tops are obsessive, but he’s very childish and spoiled, which is grating on my nerves. He’s so spoiled, in fact, that because Grim isn’t just falling all over him like everyone else, he feels he has to drug Grim to force him into releasing his pheromones. It’s disturbing, and Masachika never gets better, being very one-note compared to Grim.

While I love Grim so much, his story is pretty weak due to Masachika. However, much like the other entries in this series, this is a collection of in the same universe. To me, the other stories are better and deal with established couples from the previous series. Specifically, this has stories for Rentaro and Yuji and Yasuda and Naochika. Of the three couples we see, my favorite story is about Yasuda and Naochika. I love that we see one of these beautiful cat men struggling with aging and his looks (I can relate). It is a bit reminiscent of the first entry of this series. I love that the tension isn’t based on if they’ll get together or anything like that. It’s a lovely insight into their lives after marriage, how they handle jealousy and self-care, and their insecurities. I would take thirty more volumes of this and this couple because their personalities are fun, and their love feels so real.

The final couple of this volume, comprised of Rentaro and Yuji from volume one, is fine. It’s less of a story and more of a smutfest, which I am happy to get. On the topic of , there is plenty of it. While the art has improved and is cleaner, the smut is still hard to read. It’s still a good time, but it can be annoying trying to stop and discern whose body parts are whose, what position they are in, etc. Granted, having to stop and look at smut for a bit longer isn’t really that big of a negative, is it?

Results:

I much preferred this to the second entry in the series, and while the main story wasn’t my favorite, I still enjoyed this overall. Grim is great, and I hope that we will get to see more of him if there are future entries. This series is a hard sell with the second volume, and I think it’d be hard to read this one without the context of the other two, but if you can stomach the content of the second one, I do think this one is worth a read. It’s smutty, fluffy, and a good time altogether.

Have you read Having My Favorite in the Middle of the Night? If so, what do you think? Do you agree with my assessment? Do you not? Let me know, and comment below!

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