The Spring 2025 Manga Guide

Ask and You Will Receive (18+)

What's It About? 

It doesn't take much to get Hikaru into bed. He's surprisingly responsive to Shinobu's every touch, and Shinobu's plan of loving and leaving hits a setback when he can't get enough of his prissy coworker. As one night turns into many, Shinobu starts to wonder if this is still revenge or if it's turned into something sweeter…

Ask and You Will Receive has a story and art by Niyama, with English translation by Adrienne Beck. This volume is lettered by Amethyst Xuan. Published by SuBLime (April 8, 2025). Rated M.

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

How you feel about Ask and You Will Receive may depend on your tolerance for romances where one partner is flat-out lying to the other. That's far from my favorite trope, which definitely influenced my enjoyment of the book, although even then I have to admit that it's a nice, quick read, mostly because the plot isn't concerned with things like "following through." The story follows two coworkers at a run-of-the-mill company who barely interact until one of them, Hikaru, starts showing up at the gay bar where Shinobu relaxes in his off-time.

Hikaru is the company prince, a hotshot in the sales department who knows full well how appealing he is, so there's some credibility to Shinobu's dislike of him. Shinobu deliberately hides his good looks at work, slouching and keeping his bangs over his thick glasses to fly under the radar, both to avoid women's attention, which he's emphatically not into, and to ensure that he can do what he likes in his off time without worrying about being recognized. Hikaru at work is snooty to Shinobu, lightly putting him down for his appearance enough that Shinobu actively dislikes him.

So when Hikaru starts showing up at Bar Caprice, Shinobu's after hours hangout and hook up spot, Shinobu's less than thrilled. Hikaru's there because his friend told him it was cozy, but also because he feels like, as a hot guy, he needs another man to fall for him. That plot point gets dropped pretty quickly as he zeroes in on Shinobu, who eventually figures that he ought to have dirt on Hikaru just in case he ever figures out the truth. But you know what? All of this is just window dressing for what the story's really about: two ridiculously attractive men having explicitly-drawn sex while dancing around their feelings. And even the feelings aren't quite as well developed as you might like or expect. Shinobu absolutely thinks Hikaru's adorable in bed, but that's still not the focus of the plot.

Ostensibly, this is about Hikaru and Shinobu learning about each other and falling in love after falling into bed, and that is in here. But it's not all that well developed, and the reveal that Shinobu has been lying by omission to Hikaru for most of the book turns out to be something of a non-issue. It's not bad, and if you're just looking for uncensored 18+ BL, it more than fits the bill. But if you like more of an emotional story with your smut, this wouldn't be the first title I'd recommend.

Lauren Orsini
Rating:

Reading Ask and You Will Receive got me all philosophical. Like, why do I like BL manga in the first place? Everyone is going to have a different answer to this question, but I think many fans might express an affinity for queer romance where the characters exist beyond the norms of the traditional romantic roles laid out in heterosexual romance. Ask and You Will Receive stuck very rigidly to these norms. The characters' sexual preferences as top and bottom also seemed to extend to every other aspect of their personalities, one the giver and one the receiver, one the pursuer and one the pursued. This used to be par for the course once upon a time, but in 2025 I prefer more egalitarian BL.

Shinobu plays the bumbling, bespectacled fool at work in order to keep people from realizing he's actually super hot—he doesn't want the attention, and especially not from the ladies. He couldn't be more different than Hikaru, the office prince beloved by the female staff. But since this is a BL story, Hikaru gets it into his head that in order to be next level handsome, he ought to be attractive to men as well as women. He decides to see how far his looks can take him at the local gay bar, which happens to be Shinobu's favorite haunt. Hikaru becomes obsessed with catching Shinobu's eye, not realizing that Shinobu is the same errand boy he derides at the office. The ensuing tale of mistaken identity quickly gets hot and heavy, and the sex scenes that unfold are the gay sex version of missionary. When Hikaru revealed he'd never been with a man before, I thought Shinobu might lead by example. But the man remained inflexible on the point of who gives and who receives.

I had high hopes for this title from SuBLime, the publisher of legendary BL series like Dick Fight Island and Ten Count, that were not fulfilled in Ask and You Will Receive. The rigidity of roles combined with the way it seemed like the romantic leads barely even liked one another, rubbed me the wrong way. That said, I adored the twin servers who worked at the gay bar and who appeared in matching costumes in each scene, never donning the same outfits twice. Whether they showed up as cops, nurses, or gangsters, their antics were the highlight of this title.