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Introducing Let’s Get Visual!

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A bit of news on this Saturday evening: It’s time to head over to Soliloquy in Blue where Michelle Smith and I have posted the first installment of our new monthly feature, Let’s Get Visual!

Inspired by our own lack of background and training in the visual arts, Michelle and I decided to take some time each month to choose a few panels from our favorite manga to analyze and discuss.

Are we really just embarrassing ourselves by revealing our ignorance in public? Perhaps. But by making ourselves think harder about how to express what we see in the manga we read every day (and with, hopefully, some gentle guidance from more knowledgeable readers) we hope we’ll become better manga critics!

My choice for our inaugural column is four pages from volume fifteen of Hikaru no Go, one of my favorite series, drawn by an artist I admire quite a bit. …

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Let’s Get Visual: Warm-Up Exercises

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MICHELLE: Welcome to a brand-new Feature here at Soliloquy in Blue: Let’s Get Visual! Each month, Manga Bookshelf‘s MJ and I will select a page or sequence of pages from our recent manga reads that we find intriguing and attempt to develop our visual-critiquing muscles by sharing our thoughts about it. Neither of us is particularly adept at this, but it’s our hope that by a little regular exercise, we’ll get better.

MJ: Should we talk a little about why we each decided to do this?

MICHELLE: Personally, I’ve always felt that my attempts to discuss comic or manga art have been desultory at best. Usually, they take the form of an afterthought paragraph tacked at the end of the review after I’ve said everything I have to say about the plot and characters. I’ve read a few things about pacing and paneling online and, in general, would simply like to be stronger in this area and train myself to think more about it while I read.

MJ: I think my motivation is very similar. I know what works for me as a reader and I can even take a stab at expressing why, but I don’t really have the vocabulary necessary for discussing the visual aspects of comics, despite my love for them. I’m hoping I’ll get some help with that from the folks who read this column, and that it might give me a greater understanding of this medium that I spend so much of my time thinking and talking about.

MICHELLE: Yes, I’m hoping we’ll get some (hopefully benevolent) guidance, too! With that, shall we get started?

MJ: Yes, let’s!

MICHELLE: For our first attempt, we’ve started simply; I’ve picked one page from volume three of Rei Hiroe’s Black Lagoon while MJhas chosen a sequence of pages from the game-changing fifteenth volume of Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata’s Hikaru no Go. All images can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Black Lagoon, Volume 3, Chapter 17, Page 112 (VIZ Media)

MICHELLE: A little background information is required to explain why I found this page from Black Lagoon so interesting. The protagonists of this series are the Lagoon Traders, operating in the waters of South Asia. They routinely accept dangerous jobs, but the one they’re currently on—attempting to deliver detailed Hezbollah plans to a CIA agent—is more fraught with peril than most. They’re being pursued by a number of other vessels and their chances of getting away are slim.

The basic layout of this page—two long horizontal pages on top, one long vertical column on the far right, then some shorter panels on the bottom left—is one that Hiroe has used a few times in the series so far. What struck me in this particular instance is how the flow of the panels directs one’s eye, and how that direction mirrors the characters’ spirits.

In that vertical panel in the bottom right, Rock is dejected. He has finally acknowledged that they’re doomed, and the trailing bottom edge of that panel and placement of Dutch’s dialogue bubble pulls our eyes just about as low as they can go, just like Rock’s hopes. But then Revy has an idea, and our eyes locate her halfway up the page, like a cautious rebound of hope. The rest of the page involves the whole team expanding upon her plan, including the mention of the explosives that will be their ticket to escape.

This may look like a very simple page, but its execution is nothing short of elegant.

MJ: Oh, that is nicely done! I’ll make a comparison here using a medium I do have the vocabulary to discuss intelligently. Your observation here reminds me of something I frequently talk about with my voice students (I used to be a singer, and I still teach) regarding various composers’ level of skill in writing for singers. The best composers tell you everything you need to know about what you should be feeling in any particular moment—whether you’re singing opera, art song, musical theater, whatever—using music only. Pitch, rhythm, dynamics–everything is there if you just pay enough attention, and as long as you use those tools given to you, your audience will understand, whether they speak the language you’re singing in or not.

This visual language reminds me very much of that, and I feel like even if we were looking at this in Japanese, though we’d certainly lack specifics, we’d still comprehend the emotional trajectory of the story here.

MICHELLE: That’s a very apt comparison. Rock’s body language being so easy to read helps, too.

MJ: So, what else do you like about this? I was wondering if you had particular thoughts about the final panel, which suddenly zooms high above them.

MICHELLE: I think this is meant to emphasize how much of a team solution it is. I also love that although the original suggestion about the Semtex does not have a tag on it to designate the speaker, the way everyone else is turned toward Revy suggests that she was the one who spoke.

MJ: Oh, you’re much smarter than I am, though I did have a thought as well. I was thinking about what you said in your original paragraph about the rest of the panels being about the whole team expanding on Revy’s idea, and I thought “expand” was just the word I’d use to describe that final panel. Most of the rest of the page is made up of close-ups, and then that one just zooms way out, suddenly lending a real sense of space.

MICHELLE: Ooh, that’s a very clever point! Go you! Anyway, that’s all I’ve got this time. Why don’t you tell us about the pages you chose?

Hikaru no Go, Volume 15, Chapter 124, Pages 74-77 (VIZ Media)

MJ: Okay, so I’m not even going to introduce these pages, because part of what I think is so brilliant about them is that I don’t have to.

So, you’ve got Hikaru, who is obviously really tired, in that sort of raw way that can only really exist when you’re forcing yourself to be awake. His entire body expresses this, and he’s pretty much holding up his head with his hand. Someone’s talking to him (readers of the series will understand it to be Sai), but Hikaru’s so out of it, he’s not even really with him. Hikaru’s unmoving, frame after frame, in a kind of zone of nothingness.Then something happens at the bottom of the first page and *wham* the door behind Hikaru is sharp again, like the world has shifted from a half-dream state into the harsh light of day.

The real awakening, though, happens on the next page, when Obata widens the lens to make the empty space in the room the focus of panel. This is accented perfectly by the curtains blowing the breeze and the bright sun lighting up the room. Everything is set to evoke a feeling of wide, empty space in this tiny little room. I can almost hear the sounds of everyday life outside that might be wafting in to this quiet room through Hikaru’s open window.

My favorite touch, though, is the way this ends. That wide shot could have easily been the last image in the chapter, and probably it would have had even more impact if it had been. But rather than leave readers with the dramatic lack of Sai, the next two panels bring us back to the *presence* of Hikaru. He’s small, he’s bewildered, and he’s just been awakened in a really harsh way, but there’s a warmth and poignancy in those last two panels that reminds me why I love this series so much.

MICHELLE: There are two things in what you’ve said that really resonate with me. Firstly, I’m struck with the import of the door. I almost feel like I’m back in tenth grade, analyzing poetry, but now that you’ve mentioned its abrupt clarity, I’m convinced that there’s some pretty heavy symbolism behind that door being so conspicuously and firmly shut.

Also, I had the exact same reaction to the open window and billowing curtain—I felt like I could hear the sounds of everyday life carrying on even after something immense has happened. This reminds me of the scene in “The Body,” the fifth-season Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode in which Buffy comes home to find her mother dead on the couch. At one point she steps outside and there’s the world, carrying on as normal while she is going through something devastating.

Lastly, the one thing in that scene that draws my attention in a strange way is the reflection of the books on the floor opposite Hikaru. It’s such a small detail, yet it seems to emphasize the emptiness even more.

MJ: I actually thought of that scene from “The Body” when I was writing here, and I wondered if you’d bring it up! Yes, that’s exactly the kind of thing I mean. I love your observations about the door and the reflection of the books, too. I think you’re absolutely right on both counts.

MICHELLE: I can always be counted on to reference Buffy! It’s interesting that we both chose examples wherein someone has their back to the audience; it seems like that’s something that may not happen too often, though I’ll have to pay more attention from now on to see whether that’s really true. Why do you think Obata decided not to show Hikaru’s expression right away?

MJ: I think he didn’t need to. I think Hikaru and the reader are feeling the same thing in that moment, so illustrating it is totally unnecessary, and doing so might actually lessen the panel’s impact.

MICHELLE: I think so, too. It would place a limit on Hikaru’s comprehension of the situation, as well.

MJ: I also like the fact that when we do see Hikaru’s face in the next panel, it’s not straight-on. The vantage point and slight distance makes it clear that he’s still processing what’s in front of him (or not) . It also makes him appear small and vulnerable, but not in an overly cartoonish way. It’s perfect.

MICHELLE: I agree! Well, how do you think we did, our first time out? We might be a bit sore tomorrow, but it certainly felt good to stretch some little-used muscles.

MJ: I think we did all right… hopefully scoring relatively low on the scale for potential embarrassment. Heh. I’m really looking forward to seeing what kind of wisdom we might glean from our more knowledgeable readers!

MICHELLE: As am I. We look forward to your feedback, and hope that you’ll join us again next month for the next installment of Let’s Get Visual!

Off the Shelf: Stop Making Sense

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Welcome to another edition of Off the Shelf with MJ & Michelle! I’m joined, once again, by Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith.

This week, we discuss titles from Viz Media, Yen Press, Square Enix and eManga (Digital Manga Publishing).

MICHELLE: MJ, I don’t mean to alarm you but I have some bad news. This column is going to self-destruct in five seconds unless you tell me about a manga that you read this week.

MJ: Gah, the pressure! The pressure! I can’t work like this, Michelle! Must… calm… down.

*breathe*

Okay. I had a bit of an odd week which kept me away from home a lot, so I didn’t have an opportunity to read any of the piles of manga I have staring down at me, day after day. To make up for this, I decided to check out some of the free manga I’ve mostly ignored online. Much of what I read was single chapters, but my cyberjourney first took me to Viz’s SigIKKI site, where I finally read the first volume of Natsume Ono’s House of Five Leaves, which is coming out in print next month.

I’ve had mixed reactions to Natsume Ono’s work so far. I liked Ristorante Paradiso, but had issues with Not Simple. *This*, however, I loved. It’s really my kind of manga in so many ways.

The story revolves around a samurai, Akitsu, who is dedicated to his vocation, but whose mild, even shy, personality has lost him his place among his kind. His timid manner is such a detriment, he can’t even hold a position as a bodyguard, so he’s often left with no money, scraping by on odd jobs which he finds fairly humiliating. Then he meets Yaichi, a powerful, charismatic guy who hires him for a one-time job. Akitsu is drawn to Yaichi’s personal qualities–the same ones he most painfully lacks–but his illusions are shattered when he discovers that Yaichi’s line of business is a sort of twisted vigilante kidnapping racket. Disgusted, Akitsu tries to distance himself from Yaichi and his group, but he’s undeniably drawn in by the warm relationship they all have with one another, which he finds difficult to let go….

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Pick of the Week: A Drunken Dream

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Buy this book – As I peruse this week’s new arrivals at Comicopia.com, I feel a bit sad. There are a number of new volumes that might normally catch my eye for Pick of the Week. Rasetsu, for instance, has become quite a favorite. And who can resist Sand Chronicles?

This week, however, everything fades in the presence of a newly-released collection of short manga from shojo pioneer Moto Hagio, A Drunken Dream and Other Stories. The book is published by Fantagraphics, and edited and translated by Matt Thorn.

Simply put, this book is gorgeous. You can expect a review here soon at Manga Bookshelf, though there’s no way I’ll come even close to doing it justice, unlike Kate Dacey, whose recent review should be required reading all on its own. Visit Publishers Weekly for a very generous preview, if you’re wondering just what I mean by “gorgeous.” Also, check out the slideshow at Fantagraphics’ website for a glimpse of its spectacular, hardcover glory. This is not a cheap book (in any sense of the word), and it is a must-buy for any fan of sequential art.

For my thoughts on one of the very few of Hagio’s works to be published in English, you can read my review of the out-of-print short series They Were Eleven.

This is a release I’ve been eagerly anticipating since its announcement. Visit your local bookstore to find out why.

Manhwa Monday: Hitting the Charts

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Welcome to another Manhwa Monday!

As most of you probably know, Matt Blind is the guy we manga fans look to for weekly analysis of the Consolidated Online Sales Rankings over at his blog, Rocket Bomber. Recently he added some new analysis to mix, the Manhwa breakout, for the week ending August 8th.

It’s a pretty interesting list, and though most of the manhwa doesn’t really rate all that high, what’s surprising is what’s ranking, and in what order. The top three are not shocking at all (new volumes of Angel Diary, Jack Frost, and Bride of the Water God), but then things get a little weird, or at least unexpected.

It’s thrilling to me to see U Don’t Know Me next on the list, a boys’ love one-shot by Yeri Na (working under the pseudonym “Rakun”) and a particular favorite of mine. There are actually quite a few there from NETCOMICS and Tokyopop, despite the fact that some of the volumes were published as long ago as 2003.

Check out Matt’s blog for the full listing.

This week in reviews, Lu at Regular Rumination talks about Kim Dong Hwa’s The Color Trilogy (First Second). Despite being confused about Korean name order, she hits upon some of the things that bothered me about the trilogy as well, so it was a bit gratifying to see that come from outside the usual circles.

Elsewhere, at TangognaT, Anna reviews volume one of There’s Something about Sunyool (NETCOMICS). At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie checks out the final volume of Pig Bride (Yen Press). And at Comics Village, Amy Grocki takes on volume two of Sugarholic (Yen Press).

That’s all for this week!

Is there something I’ve missed? Leave your manhwa-related links in comments!

New look for Manga Bookshelf!

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Not exactly spring cleaning, but it’s time for a new look here at Manga Bookshelf! As this website has become more and more a collection of regular columns and special features, it’s also become less well-suited to a bloggish layout, and even the semi-magazine-like functionality of the old theme was no longer fitting the bill. As new columns began to pile up, the layout just got longer and longer as I attempted to make them easy to find. Meanwhile, lengthy articles, such as roundtable discussions, could only be read in a long, narrow column, confined by the omnipresent sidebar.

So, please welcome our new layout! I’m sure it won’t please everyone (I already got an earful from one reader when I asked people to tell me if the layout worked in their browers) but before anyone else feels it necessary to chime in, let me tell you what I like about the new layout and why I believe it will serve this site better.

First, the front page is divided into multiple columns to better accommodate the site’s many regular features, more like the layout of a newspaper or magazine. Special features and discussion columns populate the left two-thirds of the page, while the right-most column showcases reviews. For those who just want a quick list of the site’s most recent posts (including those imported from Manhwa Bookshelf), one can be found in the top right corner, just as in the old layout. If you’re wondering how much less scrolling it now requires to view all this, check out the difference here: …

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Gente and House of Five Leaves

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I find Natsume Ono’s work rewarding and maddening in equal measure. On the plus side, I love her idiosyncratic style; her panels are spare and elegantly composed, with just enough detail to convey the story’s time and place. Her character designs, too, are a welcome departure from the youthful, homogenized look of mainstream shojo and shonen manga. Her people have sharp features and rangy bodies, yet inhabit their skins as comfortably as the proverbial pair of old shoes; it’s rare to see middle age depicted so gracefully. And speaking of middle age, her characters’ maturity is another plus, as they grapple with the kind of real-world problems — failed marriages, aging parents, child-rearing — that are almost never addressed in manga licensed for the US market.

On the minus side, Ono’s artwork is an acquired taste; the reader sometimes has to take it on faith that a particular character is handsome or pretty, as Ono’s children and twenty-somethings are less persuasively realized than her older characters. Then, too, Ono’s fondness for depicting everyday moments can rob her stories of any meaningful dramatic shape, creating long, meandering stretches where very little happens and even less is revealed about the characters. More frustrating still is her tendency to vacillate between allowing readers to interpret events for themselves and slapping readers across the face with a pointed observation, as if she doesn’t trust the audience to read the scene properly without a little authorial intervention.

VIZ has been lobbying hard to make Ono’s name familiar to American readers, first with not simple, a story about an abused young drifter, and then with Ristorante Paradiso, a dramedy exploring the complicated relationship between Nicoletta, a twenty-something woman, and Olga, the mother who abandoned her. This fall, VIZ will release two more works by Ono: Gente: The People of Ristorante Paradiso (August) and House of Five Lives (September). Gente, the weaker of the two, is a three-volume prequel to Ristorante Paradiso that focuses less on Nicoletta and Olga and more on the bespectacled waitstaff at Cassetta dell’Orso, the trattoria owned by Olga’s husband. House of Five Leaves is a very different beast, a historical drama reminiscent of such films as Hara Kiri and The Twilight Samurai. Its hero, Akitsu Masanosuke, is a timid ronin who can’t hang on to a job; when a businessman approaches him with work, Masanosuke readily accepts, not realizing that Yaichi, his new employer, runs a crime syndicate that specializes in kidnapping.

Though Gente can be read independently of Ristorante Paradiso, readers unfamiliar with the earlier work may feel like they’ve walked into a party that’s already in progress, as many of the stories assume that the reader will be familiar with — and therefore interested in — Cassetta dell’Orso’s employees. One of the few chapters that works well for newbies and fans alike is “Luciano,” which explores the relationship between a widower and his daughter. The story succeeds because the dynamic between them feels authentic; the daughter’s persistence and gentle needling about finding a new partner is met with equally quiet resistance from her father.

Other stories, however, preserve the rhythms of everyday life with a little too much fidelity to be interesting. “Un giornata di Vito,” for example, consists primarily of a man talking, shopping, and doing crossword puzzles with an architecture student half his age, while “Il primo anniversario” depicts a luncheon for the restaurant’s employees; in the chapter’s only dramatic moment, a waiter injures his back and retires to the kitchen to lie down. A good author doesn’t need to contrive a Big Event to enliven a slice-of-life vignette, of course, but compelling dialogue helps, and it’s here that both stories stumble. The conversation tends towards the earnest and dull, with characters occasionally stating things about themselves in a bald, unnatural fashion that seems fundamentally at odds with Ono’s desire to let us learn about her characters from watching them walk through their daily routines.

house5House of Five Leaves, too, focuses less on Big Events and more on everyday activity, but in Leaves, Ono’s restraint serves an important dramatic purpose: she’s showing us events through Masanosuke’s eyes, as he tries to reconcile the bandits’ seemingly ordinary lives with their extraordinary behavior. Making the reader‘s task more difficult is that Masanosuke isn’t very astute. He tends to focus on a kind gesture or a friendly conversation, missing many of the important aural and visual cues that might enable him to understand what’s happening — a trait that the group exploits. In one chapter, for example, Yaichi encourages Masanosuke to accept a job as a bodyguard for a merchant family while the group plans its next kidnapping. Masa befriends his new employer’s son, never realizing that his true assignment is to infiltrate the target’s household so that Yaichi’s minions can snatch the boy for ransom.

Whether Masa will harden over time or cling to his desperate belief that the Five Leaves are engaged in an honorable enterprise remains to be seen. What is apparent, however, is that this naive, self-effacing man will eventually be provoked to violence. And when that happens, we’ll appreciate the meticulous way in which Ono has been building to that moment, as we’ll at have real sense of who Masa is, and why he’s been reluctant to pick up a sword. Though Toshiro Mifune and Hiroyuki Sanada have made entire careers out of playing characters like Masanosuke, Ono makes a persuasive case that you don’t need a flesh-and-blood actor to tell this kind of story with heartbreaking intensity; she can do the slow-burn on the printed page with the same skill and intensity as Masaki Kobayashi and Yoji Yamada did on the big screen.

Review copies provided by VIZ Media, LLC. Gente is available now; volume one of House of Five Leaves will be released on September 21, 2010. House of Five Leaves is currently being serialized on the SigIKKI website.

GENTE: THE PEOPLE OF RISTORANTE PARADISO, VOL. 1 • BY NATSUME ONO • VIZ • 176 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

HOUSE OF FIVE LEAVES, VOL. 1 • BY NATSUME ONO • VIZ • 208 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Gente and House of Five Leaves

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I find Natsume Ono’s work rewarding and maddening in equal measure. On the plus side, I love her idiosyncratic style; her panels are spare and elegantly composed, with just enough detail to convey the story’s time and place. Her character designs, too, are a welcome departure from the youthful, homogenized look of mainstream shojo and shonen manga. Her people have sharp features and rangy bodies, yet inhabit their skins as comfortably as the proverbial pair of old shoes; it’s rare to see middle age depicted so gracefully. And speaking of middle age, her characters’ maturity is another plus, as they grapple with the kind of real-world problems — failed marriages, aging parents, child-rearing — that are almost never addressed in manga licensed for the US market.

On the minus side, Ono’s artwork is an acquired taste; the reader sometimes has to take it on faith that a particular character is handsome or pretty, as Ono’s children and twenty-somethings are less persuasively realized than her older characters. Then, too, Ono’s fondness for depicting everyday moments can rob her stories of any meaningful dramatic shape, creating long, meandering stretches where very little happens and even less is revealed about the characters. More frustrating still is her tendency to vacillate between allowing readers to interpret events for themselves and slapping readers across the face with a pointed observation, as if she doesn’t trust the audience to read the scene properly without a little authorial intervention.

…

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NANA Project, Vols. 13 & 14!

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Once again it’s time for the NANA Project! This time around, join Danielle Leigh, Michelle Smith, and me as we discuss volumes thirteen and fourteen of the series.

To quote Danielle, “This week we talk about three ‘controversial’ couples that take center stage in volumes 13 and 14 of NANA. Join us as Michelle puts on her detective’s cap, MJredeems “bad girl” Yuri, and Danielle gets fed up with whiny rock stars.”

On a personal note, I get to rant about Takumi some more, so it’s a satisfying session at the roundtable for me. I could complain about that guy all day long. There’s also a great deal of opinion tossed around by all on the subjects of Yuri, Miu, and Ren & Reira’s ill-conceived… everything.

Unending thanks to Danielle and Michelle for continuing to invite me into this delicious conversation. There’s little I enjoy more than participating in The NANA Project. I hope you’ll join us in conversation this month as well! …

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BL Bookrack: August Mix

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Welcome to the second installment of BL Bookrack, a new, monthly feature co-written with Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith.

This month we take a look at series from BLU Manga and Digital Manga Publishing, specifically
Calling and Scarlet from BLU and Midnight Bloom and Under Grand Hotel from DMP.

Calling | By Miu Otsuki | Published by BLU | Rated Mature | Buy this book – Kazuaki is a mild-mannered young salaryman in a passionless job whose world is turned upside-down when he (literally) runs into Kira, a successful porn actor, who is filming in a nearby park. Kira falls for Kazuaki in the moment, and though Kasuaki initially rejects his romantic advances, the two pursue a friendship that gradually turns to love.

At first glance, this one-shot seems much like any other, with two pretty-boy male leads who look more like teenagers than working adults, and who fall predictably into typical seme and uke roles. Even the premise (a porn actor? really?) seems like an unbelievable construct put into place simply to facilitate easy sex scenes.

In truth, however, Calling is a surprisingly sweet story about two lonely young men discovering love for the first time. Even the story’s obvious cliches are handled with nuance and care.

Though inexperienced Kazuaki is a classic uke in most ways, his conflicted feelings as he begins to understand passion for the first time in his life bring a sense of poignant reality to his journey that is quite refreshing. Additionally, the contrast between the hours he spends hanging out with Kira and the dull apathy he feels all day at his job help make the rapid progression of their relationship genuinely believable.

Meanwhile, Kira’s stark surprise over the realization that he can actually feel love, a concept he’d long abandoned, makes the relationship easy to root for from the very beginning.

Both characters are well-developed in a remarkably short period of time. And though the volume isn’t at all ambitious in terms of plot, it’s nice to see the mangaka address the complications of Kira’s job, particularly its impact on his relationships with both his lover and his parents. The manga doesn’t delve too deep here, and perhaps Kira’s conflicts are resolved a bit too easily, but it’s a nice touch.

Despite an overuse of wide, tear-filled eyes and pouting lips, Miu Otsuki’s artwork is nicely expressive. Her understanding of body language, in particular, helps to highlight the story’s emotional depth.

If Calling is more warm than it is profound, that’s really not something to complain about. It’s the story’s focus on small moments that make it work so well in just a single volume. In a sea of disappointing BL one-shots, Calling is a welcome oasis indeed.

-Review by MJ

Midnight Bloom | By Rico Fukiyama | Published by Doki Doki | Rated 16+ | Buy this book – I don’t always like the stories Digital Manga Publishing issues under their DokiDoki imprint (like, say, Millennium Prime Minister), but I usually do. That’s where less explicit boys’ love stories reside and, indeed, the title story of this collection, “Midnight Bloom,” fits the bill quite well.

It’s the story of Tatsuki, an actor, and Haruka, the florist with whom he falls in love. The author’s end notes reveal that Tatsuki was originally a character in another story who was jilted in the end. “Midnight Bloom” exists chiefly to give Tatsuki a happy ending, and this it does. He and Haruka fall in love quickly, swiftly divulge their deepest feelings, and work companionably to put Tatsuki’s painful past behind him. Although everything’s a little too easy, it’s still pretty cute and I liked that the characters were finding true happiness with other than their first loves.

Alas, the rest of the stories in the collection are quite disappointing. “The Big Shiba” is about a spoiled rich kid named Hana whose father never let him have a dog. When his umpteenth step-mom kicks out her chauffeur/lover, Shirou, Hana takes him in. After a few weeks of Shirou playing nice doggy his more wolfish instincts take over. I’m sure you can guess where this goes. “Now and Then, My Heart Pounds” tells the story of an eighteen-year-old heir to a family inn who’s sort of apprenticed to another inn as appeasement for an arranged marriage agreement gone wrong and ends up in a relationship with a pervy thirty-year-old guy.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the absolute worst story in the volume is “Scratch That Itch,” a particularly creepy student-teacher romance. Sometimes these kinds of stories can be handled without ickiness—perhaps only when the student is physically mature, self-assured, and the instigator—but that is definitely not the case here. The teacher entertains extremely off-putting thoughts like, “I want to see him shamed and filthy” and “All I have to do is catch him off-guard” and makes the first move on his student. I always wish for the kid to be properly traumatized when an older authority figure suddenly turns the tables on them in this way, but no, his only objection is that they should wait until they’re officially dating. Fukiyama writes that this scenario was especially requested by readers, that but she put the kid in a baseball uniform to spice things up. Ugh.

In the end, Tatsuki and Haruka’s story is bland but inoffensive and everything else is even worse than that. This one’s not worth your time.

-Review by Michelle Smith

Scarlet | by Hiro Madarame | Published by BLU | Rated Mature | Buy this book – When I reviewed Hiro Madarame’s Cute Devil back in May, I mentioned that while I liked her frequently cute (and amusing) art, I’d like to see what she could do with more sympathetic characters. Scarlet is actually her first comic but it ended up providing the answer.

Technically, this is a collection of short stories, but since only three couples are featured it feels less disconnected than others of its ilk. The title story and its follow-up, “Scarred,” depict the love story of Akio and Ryo. Ryo’s a transfer student whose European good looks make him somewhat of an idol at school, but he’s actually very lonely, very impressionable, and not too bright. He becomes attached to his first friend, Akio, and soon declares his love. The two begin a relationship, but Ryo is unable to refuse advances from others and cheats on Akio often. Obviously, Akio’s not happy about this, but Ryo is so genuinely, abjectly sorry every time that Akio keeps forgiving him.

When Ryo falls into the clutches of a manipulative girl who wants Akio out of the way for good, Ryo goes along with her plans, resulting in a disturbing attack on Akio. Nonconsensual scenes are lamentably de rigeur in boys’ love, but I do have to give kudos to mangaka who don’t shirk from depicting how awful the act truly is. Some will be infuriated by what happens next with this couple, but I don’t think it’s necessarily supposed to be romantic. At least, I hope not.

In addition to two merely decent stories about a couple with seemingly mismatched personalities, the volume is rounded out with a pair of stories called “One Night Stand” and “One Night Stand Again,” which are my personal favorites. Harumi is a gay man working in a repressive environment where he does his best to fade into the background. Every morning he rides the elevator with Toki, a charismatic coworker for whom he pines helplessly, but never speaks to him. One night, when Harumi spots Toki at a gay bar, he can’t believe his luck. Seizing the chance, and confident that his bar-hopping appearance is different enough from his workplace garb to avoid being recognized, he proposes a one night stand and the curious Toki accepts.

It’s a bittersweet evening for Harumi, and he has regrets afterwards. Toki does not and it doesn’t take him long to equate the guy from the bar with the guy in the elevator. Because Harumi’s so shy, however, Toki is content to take things at his speed. “Take all the time you need to get close to me,” he narrates as their tale comes to a close. Really, their story is simultaneously mature, sexy, and sweet, which is pretty impressive feat for a first-time mangaka!

I mentioned Madarame’s cute art, and it’s certainly put to good use here. True, sometimes her art can be a little messy-looking, but there are quite a few passages with great comedic timing and an amusingly simplistic style. Most often this appears in “Scarlet” and “Scarred,” used in good effect to depict how Ryo lights up when Akio looks his way, but there’s a really cute sequence between Toki and Harumi as well in which the latter dares to dream they might actually go out for lunch together. I also appreciate that the explicit scenes don’t feel as if they’ve simply been shoehorned in to fit some quota; they’re steamy without feeling smutty, if that makes sense.

All in all, I’m very impressed by Scarlet, though it’s rather disappointing to realize she followed this up with Cute Devil, a story of a power-imbalanced couple. Oh well. Can’t win ’em all.

-Review by Michelle Smith

Under Grand Hotel, Vol. 1 | By Mika Sadahiro | Published by 801 Media | Rated 18+ | Buy this book – Having been convicted of murdering his lover’s husband, Sen is sentenced for life to an underground prison buried in the depths of Long Island, nicknamed “Under Grand Hotel” by those who live there. It’s a rough introduction for Sen, who is beaten, raped with mop, and stuffed in a dryer by a child-molesting cannibal (no, really) all within the first 24 hours or so of his imprisonment.

He’s rescued from all this by Sword, a prison badass who has a reputation for dominating guys like Sen. The two become cellmates, and eventually enter into a sort of strange, desperate relationship.

Okay, let’s be honest here. Under Grand Hotel is a fantasy in the most complete sense of the word. It is, from its very first pages, elaborately constructed to sweep yaoi fans off their feet in the most dramatic way possible. It is violent, melodramatic, deeply unbelievable, and one of the most effective examples of romantic pornography I’ve ever seen.

This thing is epic, no less so than the likes of Korean favorite Let Dai, but without any flowery speeches or extended internal monologues standing in the way of its true mission–a whole lot of rough, manly sex. “Manly” really is the key here. This story isn’t populated by any of the wispy little bishonen found in most of the BL manga that’s been imported to the west. These men are big, heavily-muscled, and actually kind of terrifying much of the time. They are also angry and aggressive, regardless of whatever roles they play in the sack.

What’s most impressive about this manga in a narrative sense is how intense its world is, and how real Sadahiro is able to make it feel, at least while immersed. Reading this manga is like falling into the thrall of a very strong painkiller–the world reduced to a feverish bubble that both heightens and dulls the senses at the same time. It’s a dark world, to be sure, but one so far from the reader’s reality, it simply whets the appetite for more. “More darkness!” the mind cries out. “More pain!” Even the constant barrage of rape is somehow acceptable and even enticing in this utterly fantastical world.

Does that sound like hyperbole? Well, it may be. But this story begs for ridiculous description, just as it begs to be read, at least by the genre’s hard-core fans.

-Review by MJ

Review copies provided by the publishers.