Praise Me When I’m a Good Boy Review

Throughout 2024, we’ve seen many new Boys’ Love titles make it to the West, thanks to big publishers like Seven Seas and Yen Press. Many of these fall into the popular Omegaverse subgenre, which is relevant since the manga I’m reviewing today is set in the Dom/Subverse which is inspired by and shares similarities with Omegaverse works. Will Praise Me When I’m a Good Boy prove charming? Let’s find out!

As you may have gathered from the term, the Dom/Subverse is a genre in which some people have secondary genders known as Doms, Subs, and Switches (although the last one isn’t mentioned here). Having one of these traits can completely change the course of your life as you’re instinctively driven to dominate or submit to a partner.

Our protagonist Watanabe is a Sub, something he’s ashamed of and puts on an act to hide from his co-workers, students, friends and up until recently his (now ex) fiancée. Having chosen to hide the truth until after they got engaged, Watanabe ended up being dumped just a month before the wedding. Now drunk and desperate to get out of his own head, Watanabe decides to hook up with someone from a Dom/Sub-matching app but this decision leads him to be reunited with a familiar face from the past…

When Watanabe arrives at the meeting place he runs into Izumi, a former student of his. Not realising that Izumi is the person he’s supposed to be meeting, Watanabe plays it cool and pretends to be out shopping and quizzes Izumi on how his life has changed since graduating high school. However, Izumi is a Dom and he can tell that Watanabe is a pent-up Sub looking for some love and pampering, so it doesn’t take long for the two to wind up in bed together! Even with the deed done, Izumi has no intention of leaving having fallen out with a friend and lacking a place to stay.

Watanabe meanwhile is frustrated about having gone against his rule of never sleeping with a student, even if Izumi is no longer under his care and is an adult now. And to make matters worse, he can’t kick Izumi out since he took a very revealing video of them sleeping together, which is now being used as blackmail material. Watanabe later learns that Izumi has had a knife pointed at him multiple times by former lovers and our protagonist is quickly beginning to realise why Izumi is so prone to almost being stabbed…

In many ways, it’s a shame that the story used blackmail to keep them together for so long as the rest of it is very charming. There’s excellent chemistry between Watanabe and Izumi who care for and trust one another deeply, which is important for a BDSM relationship where Watanabe in particular is putting his wellbeing into Izumi’s hands.

It’s very easy in a premise like this to focus more on the sex or an imbalanced power dynamic, but mangaka Yodaka Kuroi manages to stay away from some of the more unsavoury tropes that usually show up in series like this. That’s not to say there are no sex scenes, as there are certainly plenty of those, but they’re often tied to developing Watanabe and Izumi’s relationship rather than there for the sake of it. These explicit scenes feel earned given the nature of pair’s relationship when Watanabe is going along with his instincts as a Sub is often when he’s the most honest with Izumi.

Honestly, given this is only a single volume, I was pleasantly surprised to find it was such an engaging read. Despite only having five chapters (and a short bonus) I felt like I got to know Watanabe and Izumi well as characters. Their desires, their fears and their love for one another. And that’s not something I can often say for single-volume Boys’ Love in the Omegaverse or Dom/Subverse. Plus I appreciated that while Watanabe had a hang-up about not sleeping with a student, Kuroi made the smart decision of making sure Izumi was already an adult and not under Watanabe’s care. Although it’s not clear how old our protagonist is, I don’t think there’s a drastic age gap between them which meant I felt comfortable watching over the two as opposed to if Izumi had still been a student or otherwise underage.

This is the first of Kuroi’s manga to make it to the West, but I hope it won’t be the last as they have several others that are set in similar subgenres. The artwork for Praise Me When I’m a Good Boy is expressive and when it comes to Watanabe, often very cute. He and Izumi have very different designs (Izumi is more of a tough guy with a reputation for being a delinquent despite his serious nature), which I thought was a nice contrast given their Sub/Dom natures. Again this makes me eager to see more of Kuroi’s other works too.

Praise Me When I’m a Good Boy comes to the West thanks to Yen Press and has been translated by Emma Schumacker with lettering by Dietrich Premier. The release reads well and I was impressed by the variety in lettering for different situations, particularly the use of a strong bold font when Izumi is given commands as a Dom. Sadly no extras such as colour pages here.

One thing that struck me was how often Izumi had a tilde at the end of his dialogue. I’m not sure what this represents or if it’s from the Japanese since I haven’t read the original release; presumably, it’s to indicate his tone wavering, but I felt that for an English release, it was overused and stood out as a bit unnatural. It’s not a big problem by any means though.

Overall, Praise Me When I’m a Good Boy proves to be a charming read that also serves as an excellent starting point for those new to Dom/Subverse titles. While I have reservations about some of the premise (mainly the blackmail element), there’s no denying that mangaka Yodaka Kuroi has presented us with a likeable pair of lead characters and an engaging love story.

Our review copy from Yen Press was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.