BL Metamorphosis

BL Metamorphosis is a manga about the friendship between a 17 year old girl, and a 75 year old lady who bond over a very unusual thing - BL!

I love stories about female friendships, and what I love even more is stories of unlikely female friendships. The age gap makes for a fun dynamic and I absolutely loved the two characters, they were both portrayed so realistically, and so well. Urara, the high school student is what one would expect from a shy girl that loves BL manga - a bit of an unsociable NLOG that is easily embarrassed, she's also someone who is extremely uncertain of her future and is anxious about it. On the other hand, Yuki, an old lady whose husband died years ago, whose daughter lives abroad - someone that is confident and sure of herself, unashamed of who she is, serves as the perfect opposite of Urara. The sort of callousness that comes with age (maybe that word is too strong but I love the image lmao) in Yuki is exactly something Urara needed as her guidance, while Yuki got re-introduced to the world of manga, and got to feel excited again by doing new things. It brought her out from her routine and her comfort zone, and it made her want to take more risks that she felt she should have always taken - but didn't.

I especially loved Urara's slight indifference to the world around her, this brand of "directionless" teen character is something I don't encounter so often.

Her weird hangups over being embarrassed when learning new things, or feeling like you're never "old enough" to try out certain things is something I relate to so incredbily strongly, and I've never seen this expressed in any media before. It's just such a stupid hangup to have but I'm glad someone else expressed it. And just as I recently had a conversation about how I rarely if ever relate strongly to manga/anime characters! Another thing I really enjoyed was how the author didn't rely on funny or embarrassing moments despite the subject matter that would make a lot of people blush to this day, nor did she rely on miscommunication or misunderstandings to create fake drama, there was no need for that and the work is perfectly mellow and enjoyable to read.

I was so glad to see a happy old lady as the main character, and her forwardness and self-confidence rang so true. It's truly something you gain as you age, and she reminded me of my grandma which filled my heart with warmth. It's weird to say but I kind of envied her life, reaching an age where you're content with yourself and what you made of yourself, and getting to enjoy the time you have as you come to terms with the fact that there probably won't be much time left. Sometimes, I really want to be a grandma...

Lastly, the ending as satisfactory and it wrapped up the little chapter in Yuko's and Urara's friendship well, it didn't end with some grand success story or in a melodramatic way, it was so sweet and poignant.