[Februaryuri 2026] Love Bullet
(base post on Februaryuri 2026 here!)
Love Bullet by inee
Publication
Ongoing (2 volumes so far, started in 2023)
Published in English (Yen Press), 1 volume so far
To appear in French in March 2026 (Vega-Dupuis editions)
Summary
When a person dies without having fallen in love, they reincarnate as a Cupid, tasked since time immemorial to spark romantic love in humans. Cupids of old yielded the bow; Cupids of today have guns. But their mission remains the same: play matchmakers between humans, and find suitable partners for their targets. Apparently, with enough missions done, the most skilled of Cupids may even be given a second chance at life.
Amidst all this, Koharu is a rookie Cupid still entangled in the heartbreak of her past life. But with her genuine interest in her human targets' love lives and her sincere desire to help, she will definitely make a fine Cupid - and all the more under the guidance of three (more or less) wise senpai. When they're not busy fighting over how to carry out their missions, that is.
CW
- use of firearms in a context removed from their dangerosity
- grief and character deaths
- elements of bullying in a character's backstory in the second volume
- deep-seated and unquestioned amatonormativity permeating all of the setting and characters so far
Sexual elements?
None.Comment
After risking cancellation at one volume in 2024, Love Bullet benefited from a really strong fan campaign and general surge of interest from fans worldwide; and it's been so heartwarming to witness this series being literally saved from being axed through so much support. This has given the manga quite some fame in yuri circles1, and this makes me hopeful that inee will be able to tell her entire story, with its increasing publication. And I felt like I needed to mention it in this edition of Februaryuri.
Now, before talking about what I like about it, I have to address the two elements that immediately made me a bit uneasy in its very premise.
The first is... something in the idea of the Cupids' arsenal of firearms. Of course, it's based on the thought of "upgrading" their usual bow to modern times, and it works in making moments of falling in love quite intense, with explosions and metaphorical/literal shots through the heart. But in practice, I can't help but see weapons literally used to kill people in real life repurposed into innocuous love-related tools, and... I don't know, something in this feels unsettling to me. I'm still rolling with it at the end of the day to enjoy what Love Bullet does in good, and the series' setting is too specific (and not extensively focused on gun details) to say that it glorifies firearms, but... yeah. Somehow I still find this juxtaposition of themes unnerving? Anyway.
My second point is how the entire universe built so far sounds so amatonormative. The very premise seems to imply that humans that never got to fall in love are unlucky, and that becoming a Cupid is ultimately some saving grace to give them another chance at life (and, by implication, to fall in love at last). When so many humans actually never fall in love??? And that shouldn't be a big deal?? Of course, the narrative still has a big window of opportunity for upturning this prevalent idea that love is necessarily a desirable life goal... for instance in having one of Koharu's senpai being aromantic. Considering Ena's stated disinterest in reincarnating, I really hope this is the path it'll go.
But the problem feels bigger than that. Falling in love in Love Bullet is always depicted as that sudden moment, as a heart catching fire from a Cupid's bullet - and once again it just feels like such a normative way of describing and experiencing romantic love. And the Cupids trying to find the single best match for their mission targets makes a million more questions rise about this strange setting, and... I don't knoooow! I just want to see it discuss things like aromanticism and polyamory2 and varied love experiences, and have deeper discussions on love and relationships!
But I'll stop bullying the setting for a minute. Sorry. It's just two volumes still, after all, and I enjoy what the story actually does quite a bit.
So. When you accept its premise, Love Bullet is beautifully bittersweet. It entangles really well the pangs of grief for loves that weren't, but also the grief around the Cupids literally being dead. Protagonist Koharu's story, contained within the first volume, is particularly well-told on that front - a moving goodbye to the life she lived and to a friend's unrequited love.
It's also that Love Bullet is very well paneled. This is one of the big things I take out of my read: that manga has clever ways of setting up the pages for them to hit hard when they should. Its art is mostly focused on the characters depicted, and all the more the lovable quatuor of Cupids that it follows - and that works well. On that point, seeing them all there in the prologue chapter then getting to know how they came together is a classic but efficient hook, and I've been left quite curious to see how each of them carries her own emotional baggage from her past life.
The Cupids also have a very distinctive character design, which I believe contributes to the series' recognizability and popularity. I find them endearing, somehow; and I admire the immediate readability of each of their character archetypes without making them look cliché3.
Similarly, the series' unique setting allows it to explore the love lives of various humans in an everyday modern setting, and has a fair share of girls falling in love with each other(!) without anyone batting an eye about it, in a specific way that feels really new to the yuri genre.
I don't know - there's just a lot of potential there. It's an efficient setup for unpacking a lot of complicated feelings about love and death, and for having many distinct character arcs and varied tangled knots of situationships. And so far Love Bullet has had a solid and interesting start on that! So of course people want to see where it goes - I do too.
And alright, I'll try not to have too many unrealistic expectations for the series to tackle very specific love topics and deep-end remarks like the ones I've addressed at the start of this comment. But some part of me really wants to see it try - if only because it would be formidable to see its worldbuilding suddenly address and break through its untold assumptions... and because it feels important to paint a world wider and queerer in romance than what most people have learned to expect, and not just through the (great!) presence of sapphic characters.
The rest of me just hopes that Love Bullet's story will continue to unfold, and that I'll keep being invested in it as I tag along for the ride. For now, I am!
it's been nicknamed "the little yuri who tried", and this is a title I've only seen given to Kase-san before! And spotting a handful of Love Bullet fan merch in a yuri convention I attended in November, side by side with fanart from everyone's favorite Green Yuri, has also been fun.↩
the opening chapter in particular feels like such a missed opportunity on that front - there's something so frustrating to polyamory not even being mentioned as a option there.↩
And for all my potential grumblings around that genre, I must commend how the series fits within the girls with guns subgenre, at least: the protagonists never look cool in a way that feels overblown or low-key sexualizing. They're just earnestly badass, fighting with their heart on their sleeve. That doesn't make me entirely comfortable because I'm uneasy around gun use in general, but it makes me trust the series a lot more than other girls with guns fictions would.↩