Anime Review: Love Stage!

For all who are not into yaoi/shounen ai stop now. For those who don't know what yaoi or shounen ai is, it's boyxboy, or BL(boy love). If you now know what it is and still are not into it, then leave. You have been warned.

A new (by new I mean almost 2 years old) yaoi from the 2014 anime season! But I'll be damned, they seriously upped their game for female fans with all the manservice in that season of anime though. Dramatical Murder (without the BL, WTF guys?) Eternal Summer, Kuroko no Basket the second season, Haikyuu and those animes about the guys doing band stuff....which I shall watch.... yeup.

I dare you to guess which one's Izumi.
Guess, go ahed. Guess. 90% chance you
won't be wrong.

Ahem, anyway, Love Stage is a romance, slice of life anime? Well, probs not. Its actually an anime about a boy, Izumi, who has severe stage fright. Sadly enough, he was born into a celebrity family. His older brother is a lead singer in a band, his mother is an actress and singer, and his father is....I dunno, famous. As a child, he crossed dressed as a girl for a part in a commercial as a fill in for the girl who was sick. His costar was a boy of the same age, Ryouma. 10 years later they are doing the commercial again. The wedding commercial shows them getting married 10 years after the previous marriage. The thing is....Ryouma doesn't know that Izumi is a boyl. And...Ryouma had a crush on the girl Izumi for the past 10 years. Izumi refuses to do the commercial from stage fright and Ryouma won't do the commercial unless it's the exact cast! I uh, I think you see where this is going.

Long story short in like 3 episodes Ryouma goes from, *seeing my love again, super sweet* to *finding out my 10 year love was a dude, fuck! no homo!* to *damn, but it's been 10 years, just need to go see him and get it over it* and finally to *shit....still like him even though he's a dude, RAPE TIME*

And strangely enough, rape happens a LOT in yaoi! See Junjou Romantica. I also love how both of the boys thought, key word thought they liked girls....then became strangely okay with being with a male because of love. Which is how I like it. Love has no gender preference, but when it's BL I wouldn't mind watching that romance unfold between two guys. Heheheheh.
 (reading that, it sounds super creepy)

Love Stage in itself was a rather cute romance series. Even if you disregard the BL factor, it was rather cute. Sadly short, but cute! Nothing else really. That's it. It's just a romance series with a guy chasing after this other guy and them slowly falling in love in the span of 10 episodes.

Seriously though, do I even need to label these characters?
Do I really need to?

The characters were actually pretty decent. They didn't fit the everyday stereotypes of yaoi. But then agian, they still kind of do. At the very least, they were just a little more than the seme, uke trope. You couldn't just plan point out which one was a seme and which one was uke. (but that was just me, and I'm only a kind of yaoi fan who hasn't seen all of 'em) But I'll tell you! ONE ship sure as heck suprised ME! And then they would have been my FAVORITE PAIRING but they HAAAAAD to put it at the end!

The opening and ending match the absolute cuteness of the whole show so nothing more on that. Overall it's just super sweet. If you want something that's a little more *cough* mature  then go read the manga. Just as cute, just as cute, just as KYAAAA THEY'RE KISSING!!! Especially that couple! With the two older guys in the family....hehehehehehehehe. I love them. >w<

Anyway, LOL, guess the secret's out! I love yaoi! Yayayaya! Go watch Love Stage!

Look, there are actually females in this....not just for misunderstandings. That blonde girl to the right isn't a girl FYI.