Title: Love So Pure

Author/Artist: Plan B (a team!)

Rating: Adult

Genre: slice of life, drama, found family, contemporary, queer themes, trauma, crime/punishment, gangs

Hosted On: Tapas

Official Link(s): English

Official Summary:

It’s easy to get laid when you’re a pretty, sassy bartender working at a popular gay bar. This lifestyle suits Jihyun just fine since he loves casual hookups without any intimacy… That is until he meets Yohan—his big, scary-looking classmate who’s actually a pure-hearted sweetie. Can Yohan’s simple love help commitment-phobic Jihyun heal from the traumas of his past?

My Thoughts:

I got into this series because I saw a TikTok about the second couple in the series – Yohan’s brother Yosef and the tiny precious Daeshik. The first time I tried reading Love So Pure last year, I kind of bounced off of it. Even though it was fun to see main characters Yohan and Jihyun fumble with each other and their feelings, even the delicious dramatic size difference couldn’t keep me reading for some reason? But the catnip of the very cute, very eager Daeshik figuring out his sexuality and his feelings for Yosef dragged me into the series and I found a deep appreciation for it. There are two real seasons and then about twenty one side stories that comprise the third season.

The first season is solely about Jihyun and Yohan. Jihyun is a traumatized “sex obsessed” twink making his way through Seoul’s gay scene. He works at a gay bar at night and attends college during the day. Very early on in the series, it’s made clear that he has serious relationship trauma and a fear of his boundaries and privacy being invaded. Yohan is this big beefcake with a heart of gold. He’s initially a pushover who doesn’t think twice before offering help to the people around him, wanting desperately to be liked because of the relationships he’s had in his past where people misunderstood and disliked him. They start a fractured classmates-to-fuckbuddies relationship where Yohan catches feelings basically instantly and Jihyun proceeds to run as far away from his feelings as is possible. Their season is about dealing with their respective traumas and trying to be better people for their own sakes but also for the sake of their relationship.

The second season occurs alongside the first and features the itty bitty first year Daeshik and Yohan’s bigger, beefier older brother Yosef. Daeshik is fully my favorite character in the series, let’s get that out of the way from here. His first interaction with Yosef is a painful one. He accidentally comes across as homophobic – because his only association with gayness at that point was it being used as a pejorative directed towards him – but when Yosef calls him out for appearing to be close-minded, Daeshik decides he’s gonna do what he does best: learn shit. You see some of it in the first season (where Daeshik’s cute rainbow fits are all over the place), but the second season is where you see Daeshik’s attempts to educate himself and understand himself really pop. He’s really passionate about understanding the world and Yosef quickly becomes a huge part of his world.

Now, when it comes to Yosef, there are a lot of things to love about him. While we got some of his tragic backstory in the first season, we get all of it in the second and it is painful. He’s in one of Korea’s biggest gangs and unlike his peers… he doesn’t want to exploit or otherwise harm people. He has a heart of gold and is very aware of the role his father’s abuse plays in how he reacts to other people. He holds himself apart from the people he loves – his brother, their mother, Daeshik, his underlings in the gang – because he believes he’s going to leave them one way or another. It’s incredibly heartbreaking to watch him try to cling to Daeshik only to push him away right after because he’s afraid of hurting him.

And the third season basically ties up all the lose ends of the relationships the different characters have and shows you a satisfying conclusion to all of the lovely friendships and romances developed across the series.

Here’s the thing about Love So Pure: I went into it fully just jonesing for some quality papapa between these gigantic tops and their small/mid sized bottoms. I did. I saw Yosef fold over practically in half to kiss Daeshik and said “I need to see more of this preferably without clothes”. But then I started reading in earnest and this very tender, stressful story about being a traumatized and/or stressed out queer in Korea really just… hooked me? It’s not just the main couples either. There’s a lot going on here in terms of the found family development and it’s all incredible. The characters really feel like a relatable family as they came together to solve their problems and heal together… it’s fantastic.

Love So Pure is honestly incredible. I thought it was a really fun, super soapy queer coming of age story. It’s stressful at parts, sexy at others, and above all, it ends in such a satisfying way. At the end, I felt like I was seeing off my friends as they went on to new stages of their lives and I even shed a single tear because I was so happy to let these characters go into the world. If you’re in the mood for an erotic romantic dramady – seriously, Daeshik brings some seriously chaotic humor into the series – and have coins to spare on Tapas… I think you should check this series out!