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The standalone volume by mangaka Guri Nojiro, from whom “A Beast’s Love Is Like the Moon” has already been released on the US market, was published in Japan from July 2021 to May 2022 under the original title “Kurikaeshi Ai no Ot” in the boys’ love magazine ihr hertZ.
There have already been German releases by Guri Nojiro as well. This year, Egmont Manga published “Gold und Silber flüstern in der Nacht”. At the beginning of next year, the standalone volume “Unsere Liebe in einem anderen Leben” is set to follow.
How was it?
The protagonist Kiri, a celebrated conductor of the W Symphony Orchestra, stands on the brink of collapse. His perfectionism, once the engine of his success, has become his torment. After a public outburst, he is sent on compulsory leave and returns, exhausted and disoriented, to his hometown. In the midst of a snowstorm, in a house without electricity, he nearly freezes to death until he is found by Osamu, the son of a grocery store owner.
What initially appears to be a chance encounter develops into a confrontation with himself. Osamu persuades Kiri to conduct the local middle school choir for a small Christmas concert. Hesitantly, Kiri agrees, more out of a sense of duty than joy in the task. Yet working with the children, above all Osamu’s younger sister Lala, becomes the decisive turning point in his career.
At first, Kiri meets with rejection. The students perceive him as cold, authoritarian, distant. His strictness, which was routine in the city, here meets vulnerable adolescents who understand music as joy, not discipline. When the choir threatens to fall apart, Kiri must realize that he himself has forgotten how to listen—not only to others, but also to himself.
The encounter between Kiri and Osamu is initially irritating as well. Osamu is young, open, and almost excessively warm, and thus the exact opposite of the withdrawn, embittered conductor. The fact that Osamu has admired Kiri for years and collects his CDs lends their relationship a strange imbalance: the affection seems one-sided at the beginning, almost parasocial. Yet the manga uses this tension to gradually bring both characters closer together.
Their relationship emerges quietly, between glances, small conversations, accidental touches. But where the narrative pace initially feels believable despite all the skepticism due to the one-sidedness of the relationship, it tips in the final third: the transition from cautious rapprochement to physical intimacy happens too abruptly, without the emotional development to support this closeness. This robs the story of some of the credibility it builds elsewhere.
The characterization also remains uneven. Kiri is tangible, his inner conflict understandable: the pressure, the trauma, the loss of his mother. Osamu, by contrast, remains a projection. He is a mixture of fan, savior, and love interest, without clearly discernible depth. One learns little about his own wishes, worries, or motives, so that in the end the relationship does not really feel genuine, but much more like a refuge.
Despite these narrative breaks, In Love’s Key, Reprised is aesthetically appealing. The art style is elegant and calm, with fine lines, soft shadows, and a palpable sense of mood. The wintery setting supports the theme of pause and new beginnings. The manga is at its strongest in the quiet moments: when Kiri stands at his mother’s grave, his hands frozen, and refers to himself as a “failed human being.” Or when Osamu, awkward and sincere at the same time, simply hands him a blanket. It is these small gestures that define the tone of the work.
The manga is published under the Vertical imprint, which is why the format differs from Kodansha’s now fairly standard large format. There is one color page, though it does not depict the characters, but decorative shapes.
Is In Love’s Key, Reprised worth reading?
“In Love’s Key, Reprised” is, in my view, a rather incomplete standalone volume. The manga wants to be more than a romance, but too often loses itself in hasty tones and unbalanced characters. Those who appreciate gentle, melancholic narratives about healing and human warmth will nevertheless find moments here that linger, even if, in my view, it was not exactly the boys’ love standalone volume that left a lasting impression on me.
In Love's Key, Reprised
€12,79
€14,95
Rural Respite for a Weary Heart Forced by poor health to take a leave of absence, curmudgeonly conductor Kiri returns to his rural hometown for some much-needed rest. But on his very first night back, he comes dangerously close to… read more
