Reviews for The Day I Became a Butterfly (Yaoi)

The average rating for The Day I Became a Butterfly (Yaoi) based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-02-28 00:00:00 Richard Atkinson The title story was sad but at the same time I really liked it. This story and the second one have the same atmosphere as "Same Cell Organism" (and the second story in Same Cell Organism) which is hard to describe for me. It's kind of melancholy but peaceful and … well, lovely. What I absolutely didn't like was that the third and fourth story weren't BL… I wouldn't have minded this as much if this was advertised on the back or wherever. Why do publishers do this?! Maybe I would've liked those stories if I was prepared for them… And the second to last story was totally weird… What was this about, exactly?! I have no idea. The last one was alright. It had potential but it was too short. Also one more point of criticism: The mangaka states in her afterword that she finds her work awkward and inadequate and that she feels ashamed and at the same time grateful that those stories were collected in this volume. She says she dislikes one story and that she doesn't understand it herself, another one she declares as nonsense (she's referring to the second to last story, and I agree with her here, at least) and that she can't even remember the last one. I mean, okay, I know about the thing about Japanese constantly hiding their light under a bushel, its part of their culture but this just goes too far. I found her statement rude and insulting to her readers (even though she thanks her readers for their support, well whatever…). She didn't say one positive thing about her stories. I liked some of those stories, but she just goes and technically says "Oh, this is all crap but I'll just have it published so you can spent your hard-earned money on something I created but that I have nothing good to say about." That really pissed me off, which is a shame because as I said before, I liked some of her stories and her statement just makes me feel like she's not taking her works and her readers seriously.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-06-05 00:00:00 Jesse Yandow What an impressively ambitious collection of poignant short stories. Yumeka apologizes that they don't always make sense, but I really liked the complexity, depth and texture to the stories. No, everything isn't always explained clearly, but I don't think that matters. I guess it's a bit like what we might call an "art film" in terms of the artistic styling, too: a lot of interesting movement, art spilling from one panel into the next, translucence, overlays, etc. There's an ephemeral quality to it all, and a magic created in these small moments of heartbreakingly real life. All of the stories aren't about homosexual pairings (or conventional romances). I like that, too. I thought it was really beautiful.