After 21-year-old Chiaki watches his boyfriend, Kuon, die in a tragic accident right before his eyes, he suddenly wakes up to find himself flung ten years into the past! Now stuck in a child's body, he tries to convince Kuon that he's his future lover, but 28-year-old Kuon is a much colder and more pained man than the one he knew. But no matter how hard Kuon tries to push Chiaki away, Chiaki won't give up until, step by step, he works his way into Kuon's hardened heart once more...

Redeem: Only One Forever has a story by Scarlet Beriko and art by Scarlet Beriko and NEXT LEVEL Studio. English translation is done by Jennifer Ward and lettering by Kai Kyou. Published by Yen Press (May 26, 2026). Rated 16+.

CW: animal death

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

While I don't always love Scarlet Beriko's stories, I really like her as a creator. She always goes all-in on whatever story she's crafting, and Redeem: Only One Forever is no exception. This time loop BL tale definitely has its warts in terms of plot points, but it blends desperate pathos with lighter moments and some good background details to create a first volume that grabs hold of your attention and doesn't let go.

The story follows Chiaki, whose boyfriend Kuon is killed in a traffic accident in 2033. After the incident, Chiaki wakes up in 2023 as an eleven-year-old again. He assumes that he's been allowed this rewind in order to save Kuon and their future, but quickly realizes that this will not be easy to do as a child to Kuon's twenty-eight-year-old past self. Kuon is understandably weirded out by the little boy, but the greatest obstacle is the man himself: he doesn't see any problem with dying at age thirty-eight.

In fact, Kuon is grappling with a depression that Chiaki never knew about. The implication is that meeting adult Chiaki gave him more of a lease on life, but he's in a bad place when Chiaki goes back in time. The loss of his beloved pet cat – something foreshadowed early on but that is devasting nonetheless – emphasizes how alone Kuon feels. Beriko does a remarkable job capturing the horrible emptiness of losing a pet, how it's not “just an animal.” Kuon's depression is intense and real, and it scares Chiaki. But it's remarkably familiar if you've ever been in Kuon's shoes, and we can see that it's made worse by the fact that he's a veterinarian. Intellectually, he knows cats only live so long. Emotionally, he feels he failed her.

So yes, I sobbed through parts of this volume. But it's all very well done, and you can see Beriko building a reason for Kuon to have pushed Chiaki out of the way of that oncoming car – he doesn't want to be left alone again, even ten years later. Chiaki's job is to convey that he doesn't want that either, but to a grieving Kuon who barely believes this random elementary school kid, that's not easy to convey. While it's uncomfortable that there's such a large gap in their ages at this point (Chiaki being “twenty-one on the inside” barely cuts it), the focus is less on the romance and more on Kuon's mental health. It shouldn't work, but it does, and if I'm thinking about reading volume two despite the pet death, that should tell you that this is worth giving a chance.