The Fall 2024 Manga Guide

How to Repair a Broken Cup (18+)

What's It About? 

Although Kippei and Keita have been together for ten years now, they're still finding it difficult to be completely honest with one another. However, it seems fate has a plan to reignite their passion and fix their communication problems. The morning after Kippei accidentally breaks a sentimental mug, he swaps places with his younger self from ten years ago! Suddenly, the couple both have the opportunity to face the person they fell in love with a whole decade back, and maybe reignite the passion that's been threatening to fade away.

How to Repair a Broken Cup has a story and art by Rico Worico, with English translation by Jacqueline Fung. This volume was lettered by Viet Phuong Vu. Published by Seven Seas (October 1, 2024).

Is It Worth Reading?

It takes a lot of talent to be able to write a full story with only two characters. While you could argue that this technically has four – Kippei at eighteen and twenty-eight and Keita at the same two ages – I think that goes against the point of the story. After having been together for over ten years, the two have hit a snag in their relationship, with both of them having gotten lost somewhere on the road to mutual happiness. When Kippei accidentally breaks a mug they made as a matching set, he wakes up the next morning having swapped places with his eighteen-year-old self. This little jaunt through time helps both men figure out where things went wrong as they explore their relationship from different angles.

In many ways, it's a really lovely story. There isn't any doubt that Kippei and Keita are still in love, but things have gotten strange for them as their communication suffers. Kippei is convinced that he has to be “perfect” for Keita (who he sees as more competent than himself), while Keita lives in fear that someday, Kippei will leave him. Both of these fears trace back to earlier times in their lives, with Keita's being the more overtly serious. Abandoned by his parents in elementary school, Keita is always waiting for the next person to leave him, and that translates into the “perfection” Kippei sees. Kippei, meanwhile, struggles with physical intimacy, not because he doesn't like it, but because it embarrasses him. This appears to be the result of his perception of Keita's brilliance, but also because an enthusiastic young Keita wasn't all that good at making sure that his partner was fully ready for penetration. Once he was of age, Kippei discovered that getting drunk before sex eliminated the problem for him - but it causes a new problem for Keita, who doesn't quite know what to think. Both of them are dancing around each other in ways that are tragic and wholly human. They love each other so much, but somewhere along the line they stopped really communicating.

In some ways, this is a perfect combination of sex and emotion. The book is quite explicit and has more sex scenes than I was expecting in a volume shy of two hundred pages, but the whole point of the sex is to show whether or not both men's emotions are fully engaged. Present Kippei and Past Keita learn from each other, while Present Keita discovers what he's been missing with Past Kippei and what part he may have inadvertently played in that. It's all about growth and discovery as the two men try to find the place where they go turned around, and it's impressively not maudlin or corny, despite its use of time travel. Keita's tragic past gets much more page time than Kippei's, and that does make the book feel a little unbalanced, but if you're looking for a sexy book that's all about bringing hearts together as well as bodies, I don't think you can go wrong with this one.

What do you do when you accidentally break a beloved mug? Have lots of sex, of course! Marketed as a BL romance with a time travel storyline, I was surprised by how much the story of How to Repair a Broken Cup actually revolved around physical intimacy, but I can't say I was mad about it. This science fiction story about reclaiming the spark in one long-time couple's romance is a surprisingly poignant look at how people change—and how they stay the same—after the happily ever after.

Kippei and Keita have been dating for 10 years. On the surface they're living in domestic bliss, but they're also in a serious dry spell in the bedroom. The morning after Kippei accidentally breaks one of a matched pair of mugs, he finds himself transported into the past, waking up in 18-year-old Keita's bed! What do you do when you're face to face with your lover back in his prime? Give him a test drive, of course. Meanwhile, Keita wakes up to find that 18-year-old Kippei has been transported to the future (swapping places with the 28-year-old Kippei in the past). Clearly, more sex is called for all around. Something strange is going on and it'll take these two (four?) conducting a very hands-on investigation to figure out what. Do they ever get back to their timelines, and if so, how? Don't worry about it!

Though sex is a major part of this story, the style of censorship makes the characters look like Ken dolls. It felt a bit excessive; we all know why we're here reading this. Still, the endearing personality details made it easy to fill in the blanks. My favorite part was the characterization of two people who were, if not falling out of love, exactly, forgetting what it was about one another that drew them together in the first place. For example, the way it dawns on Kippei that he takes Keita's prowess in the bedroom for granted (after realizing that 18-year-old Keita lacks the moves to go with his youthful good looks) is a tender reminder of how two people can grow together over a long relationship while forgetting where they came from. I was rooting for this pair (foursome?) to relearn how to appreciate one another, and it made me hope that after the events of the story, they finally have an honest talk about the emotions they've been concealing.