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3 Things Thursday: Shojo Manga

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Welcome to a brand new weekly blog feature at Manga Bookshelf, 3 Things Thursday! For the inaugural edition, I’m going to begin by breaking the rules straight off.

In a recent Manga Out Loud podcast, one of my favorite manga critics, Ed Sizemore, mentioned casually that he hadn’t read much good shojo. While the definition of “good” is likely to vary greatly from critic-to-critic on a topic so subjective, I figured I’d start my 3 Things off by listing three currently running shojo manga I think are especially worthwhile. And since so many of my favorites are older manga, I’ll cheat a bit by also listing three “classic” manga I recommend as well. These are not to be taken as my “TOP ThrEE FAVORITES OF ALL TIME” by any means, but rather three of each that simply spring to mind. I do think it’s interesting to note that every single one of them is/was published by Viz Media. So here goes!

3 favorite current shojo series:

We Were There | Yuki Obata | Viz Media – Few manga out there have affected me on a personal level as deeply as this one has. From my review of volume one:

“What’s nice about this manga is its simplicity and quiet honesty … The characters’ greatest obstacles are themselves, just like in real life … To achieve this, We Were There takes popular manga stereotypes and turns them into real people. In place of the clumsy, helpless shojo heroine, we have Nana, who is exactly as awkward as any average girl entering a new school, no more, no less … In place of the brooding, dangerous love interest (or its inverse–the shining, popular prince), we have Yano, who is often thoughtless, occasionally kind, and though he is definitely hiding some real pain behind his carefree image, is mostly just confused about his feelings, much like most teenaged boys.”

More reviews here.

Crown of Love | Yun Kouga | Viz Media – This dark, complicated tale of ambition and obsession will be complete in four volumes as of November 2nd. From my review of volume one:

“Crown of Love is the retelling of an older series by mangaka Yun Kouga, originally serialized in 1988. That series was only two volumes long, with an ending described by the artist as “abrupt.” … where Kouga succeeds, and stunningly so, is in her characterization. There are no shojo stereotypes here, despite appearances … The fact that the characters seem to know just how screwed up they are is what rescues them from being too disturbing to bear … As always, Kouga’s art is a highlight of her work. There’s something essentially cheerful and straightforward about her layout and designs that gives a story like this an even darker tone than it might have with a more overtly sinister look. Also, though the story is far from light-hearted, there is a clarity to Kouga’s visual storytelling that keeps it from becoming mired in its own weight.”

More reviews here.

The Story of Saiunkoku | Sai Yukino, Kairi Yura | Viz Media – A brand new favorite, this series got my attention immediately with its complicated characterization and strong female lead. From my discussion of volume one:

“Despite the fact that I’d heard positive buzz about this series … I admit I was more than skeptical. The manga’s opening chapter didn’t do much to sway me, either, with its gag sensibility and creepy romantic overtones … Fortunately, it quickly became clear that my first impressions were just wrong … though the story first seems to be crafted out of the same, tired tropes … each of these standard elements–the happy-go-lucky heroine, the over-the-top humor, the contrived matchmaking–becomes fresh and even insightful in Sai Yukino’s hands … Like all of us, the roles they each play with each other are the result of everything they’ve had to do to survive their lives so far. Nobody is perfect (or even perfectly evil, at least from what we’ve seen), and since flawed characters are generally the most compelling in any story, this makes for a very rich experience overall.”

Full discussion here.

3 favorite “classic” shojo series:

Basara | Yumi Tamura | Viz Media – This multi-volume epic is a must-read for any fantasy/adventure fan. It also features a fantastic female lead who manages to be both vulnerable and kick-ass throughout. From Michelle Smith’s review of volume 25:

“I admit it: I cried. At things happy, sad, and both at once. I’ve invested three years in this series and can happily say that it was worth it. I’m not going to give any details on how things go down, so suffice it to say that the ending is very satisfying. I must’ve reread the last few pages three times to savor all that Sarasa had accomplished … Basara is probably the best manga I have ever read. Thanks, Viz, for taking a chance on it.”

Does any more need to be said?

Expect a full-out ode to this series here sometime in the near future.

Banana Fish | Akimi Yoshida | Viz Media – I probably have written more about Banana Fish than anyone ever should, but this story of gang wars, organized crime, drug trafficking, and government intrigue actually is one of my favorite series of all time. From Making the case for Banana Fish:

“Sure, this story is about street gangs, organized crime, blah blah blah, but what it is really about is this relationship between Ash and Eiji, and how it changes them both throughout the course of the series … I finished volume 19 (and the post-series one-shot, Garden of Light) months ago, and it still sticks with me, the story of these two, haunting the back of my mind in some way all the time … My husband once asked me, “Is Banana Fish yaoi?” and my immediate response was, “I wish”. . . What I meant was that I wish I’d ever read a boys’ love manga as interesting and well-plotted as Banana Fish. I’ll take that a step further. I wish I’d read more manga in general as interesting and well-plotted as Banana Fish, and I read a lot of manga.”

More posts here.

Please Save My Earth | Saki Hiwatari | Viz Media – Everything I need to say about this series I’ve said before. “A group of teenagers who share collective memory through their dreams about their former lives as alien scientists observing earth from the moon?? You could not possibly come up with something more appealing to the twelve-year-old me.” From History of a Daydreamer:

“Four volumes in, I said to friends, “It’s like they removed my teenaged brain and stuck it on paper for all of Japan to read.” This only became more true as I continued through the series. The plot is dense and complicated, mostly revolving around the tangled relationships and jealous rivalries that extend far beyond the characters’ past lives and in to the present … What’s really stunning about this story is how well and how believably the young characters carry their adult past-selves. As far-fetched as some of the plot manages to get, I absolutely believed every word and look from these characters…”

Read it all here.

Readers: What are three of your favorite shojo series? Tell me in comments or in your own blog!

Breaking Down Banana Fish, Vols. 7-8

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Hello faithful shojo fans, and welcome again to our roundtable, Breaking Down Banana Fish!

This month we take on volumes seven and eight, in which Ash brings his war straight to Arthur’s doorstep and Papa Dino’s bank account, playing both cutthroat businessman and cold-blooded killer, while Eiji does his best just to keep Ash human. Blackmail, introspection, and an epic subway battle ensue.

I’m joined again in this round by Michelle Smith (Soliloquy in Blue), Khursten Santos (Otaku Champloo), Connie C. (Slightly Biased Manga), Eva Volin (Good Comics For Kids), and Robin Brenner (No Flying, No Tights).

Read our roundtable on volumes one and two here, volumes three and four here, and volumes five and six here. On to part four!
…

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BL Bookrack: Four from DMP

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

This month we take a look at four manga from Digital Manga Publishing, Cafe Latte Rhapsody, Garden Sky, and The Tyrant Falls in Love from their Juné imprint, and Double Cast from DokiDoki.

Cafe Latte Rhapsody | By Toko Kawai | Published by Juné | Rated 16+ – Freckled and good-natured Hajime Serizawa works at a book store. One day, while attempting to fill an order, he comes across a huge customer with a piercing glare. Serizawa’s scared of him at first, but when the customer kindly fetches a book that the diminutive Serizawa can’t reach, he wonders if his first impression was mistaken. Further observations reveal that the huge customer is the kind of guy who tidies up books misshelved by other customers and saves abandoned kittens in the rain. In other words, not scary at all!

Serizawa learns that the customer’s name is Keito, and they strike up a friendship initially based upon finding the kittens a home. Keito discovers that Serizawa is gay when the latter’s no-good former lover comes by to hit Serizawa up for money, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. Little by little, they fall in love and it’s just about the sweetest, cutest thing on the planet.

Rather than the story fizzling at this point, it actually gets even better. Serizawa, at 23, has been in relationships before but none ever worked out. Even now, when it seems he’s finally found a fairy-tale love, he’s thinking of the day when it’ll all have to end. As readers, we also get to know him better when it’s slowly revealed that he’s not actually as cheerful as he appears—he has some deep-seated insecurity, especially about his looks, which prevents him from expressing annoyance when the girls at work start to show an interest in Keito. He feels like he’s so unattractive, it wouldn’t be fair to ask Keito not to notice them, and instead he goes in the opposite direction and almost seems to encourage their hopes.

Sweet, cute, complicated in a very human way… these are the ingredients of some of the best BL! Toko Kawai also has a gift for staging some very natural-feeling conversations between her characters. They’re not always talking about their feelings—sometimes they talk about coffee or food they dislike, and even seem to be a pair of science nerds, though that’s not dwelt upon too much. The one complaint I could really make is that the art is a little rough, but it’s not in any way detrimental to a truly charming love story.

I’ve read a few things by Toko Kawai now and there was not a one among them that I didn’t like. In fact, I think Café Latte Rhapsody has solidified my status as an honest-to-goodness fan.

-Review by Michelle Smith

Double Cast | By Ellie Mamahara & Takana Mizuhashi | Published by DokiDoki | Rated 16+ – Yuki Yamamuro is a charismatic idol whose stage work in a modern adaptation of Goethe’s Faust is just a way of killing time while he waits for his stalled television career to revive. When he fears that the young actor double-cast in his role may be making moves on his producer (and occasional lover), Otaki, he tries to manipulate his rival into falling for him instead. Unfortunately for Yuki, the other actor, Sawaki spots his efforts a mile away, setting up a level of rivalry between them that Yuki is neither emotionally nor artistically prepared to face.

The promotional copy for this manga is filled with phrases like “seemingly innocent” and “game of love.” With words like these in mind, one imagines a cast of sexy idols sharing arch glances and little substance–at best a sly, humorous romp. What Double Cast actually offers, however, is a surprisingly insightful and even touching exploration of insecurity, confidence, ambition, and art.

Initially portrayed as an arrogant player (both for the story’s audience and in the character’s own mind), Yuki’s emotional deterioration is swift and true, betraying the inherent vulnerability of anyone whose self-worth and livelihood are both reliant on the approval of strangers. Both the challenges he receives from his better-trained rival and the truths revealed by his nurturing producer are perfectly calculated to either ruin him or save him, depending on your point of view. Meanwhile, Sawaki’s bitterness over the natural charisma of his less-educated (and arguably less-talented) co-star is palpable, manifesting itself as both resentment and desire, neither of which conforms to his high ideals or his careful career plans.

That the story’s theatrical setting is one of a handful in which a cast of characters made up almost entirely of gay men seems genuinely plausible surely adds to its realistic feel, but there is really very little fantasy involved here at all. Aside from whatever liberties may be taken with the workings of the Japanese entertainment business, the characters’ emotional journeys feel very authentic to their necessarily self-centered careers.

Mamahara’s artwork is attractive, if uneven. Though the visual storytelling flows well, her male characters in particular feel stiff and awkward, with expressionless faces outside of their occasionally haunted eyes. She has better luck with her few female characters. Yuki’s ambiguous girl friend, Kaho, is downright luminous (as is her adorable pet cat) offering a refreshing contrast to the stony-faced leads and perhaps deliberately creating sympathy for a girl who is ultimately destined for heartbreak.

And “refreshing” is really a key word here. Emotionally complex and surprisingly thoughtful, Double Cast falls into the all-too-rare category of single-volume yaoi I’ve truly enjoyed reading. Recommended.

-Review by MJ

Garden Sky | By Yuko Kuwabara | Published by Juné | Rated 13+ – Garden Sky is technically a short story collection, but the stories within focus on just two sets of characters. In the first, the child-like Kami-sama (God) is lonely. While watching the pond of human lives one day, he spots an idiotic fellow who has just been shot by a jealous lover and is about to die. Figuring that bringing a dead person back as a companion does not violate the laws barring him from interfering in the lives of humans, he rescues the man, dresses him in white clothing, and dubs him Shiro (white).

Shiro’s crazy for chicks and when there aren’t any in Heaven, he convinces Kami-sama to let him pick a woman friend and, together, the three of them will become a family. As luck would have it, the woman Shiro picks turns out to be a ninja with the magical ability to change genders and she is really he, whom Kami-sama dresses in black clothes and names Kuro (black). While spazzy Shiro initially pesters reserved Kuro to adopt his feminine form, he somehow realizes that Kuro still does it for him even though he’s a guy. They seem to be growing closer and then… the story’s over.

The next set of stories, “Go East,” is more of a typical fantasy. Raiho and Yukito are students at a training school for taimashi, or fighters who combat the bevy of monsters roaming the countryside. In looks and personality, they are nearly identical to the protagonists of the earlier stories, but while Raiho is exuberant and rather clueless and Yukito is more serious, both are driven to achieve their goal of being sent to vanquish a dangerous dragon god. A decade before, a group of taimashi were dispatched to the dragon god’s lair, including Yukito’s father, thus providing Yukito’s motivation. Raiho just likes fighting monsters. They complete the task assigned by their boss to test whether they’re worthy to undertake the journey and then… the story’s over.

See a pattern here? Both tales are very light on substance, feature the same types of characters, and go absolutely nowhere in the end. They’re pretty boring while they’re underway, for that matter. The one aspect I did like is the art—it’s not groundbreaking or anything, but it’s clean and easy to read and there’s just something about the way she draws profiles that I find appealing.

Garden Sky is a disappointment. Even if you’re in the mood for a bit of fluff, surely there exists some in which stories actually conclude in a satisfying manner!

-Review by Michelle Smith

The Tyrant Falls in Love, Vol. 1 | By Hinako Takanaga | Published by Juné | Rated 18+ – Tetsuhiro Morinaga is a university student with long-held feelings for his vocally homophobic sempai, Souichi Tatsumi. Though he’s grateful that Tatsumi is willing to remain friends with him even after discovering his feelings, their close relationship actually makes the situation more difficult for Morinaga, until finally he loses control and takes Tatsumi by force.

It’s no secret how little I enjoy rape as a catalyst in BL manga, and in most cases, a premise like this would turn me off of a series completely. The frequency with which rape is used as a precursor to romance in this genre is enough to make my head spin. What makes The Tyrant Falls in Love stand out in the din, however, is how expertly the relationship between its characters is developed from the beginning, and how that changes the tone of the whole story–even the dreaded rape. To be clear, this scenario is no less disturbing to me than in any other BL rape fantasy, but far more interesting in its development and execution.

Takanaga’s skill as a writer is evident from the beginning. With sure, broad strokes she paints her main characters, letting us know exactly who they are in the very first pages, and cementing their relationship with little more than body language and a few pieces of dialogue. Her drawing is expressive and the humor is spot on. The rape itself happens less than two chapters into the volume, but even by then, and even with the use of a device so ridiculous it basically boils down to a love potion, these characters have been so firmly established, it’s not at all difficult to believe the scene as played.

It’s all sickeningly believable–Morinaga’s careful manipulation of his own thoughts to justify actions he knows are deeply wrong, the sheer horror on Tatsumi’s face as he realizes that he’s not safe with the person he trusts most–every piece of this scene rings true. And even afterwards, as Morinaga withdraws from the school in shame, the relationship between the two of them has been so well-drawn, it’s not at all unbelievable that Tatsumi might feel devastated at the loss, to the point of offering forgiveness to the person who has betrayed him in the worst way he can imagine.

Unfortunately, it’s after this that Takanaga gives in to cheap fantasy, satisfying her readers’ immediate romantic desires but sacrificing her characters in the process. Given the deep relationship between her main characters, there may indeed be a way to believably move them towards actual romance, but pushing them into a never-ending predator/prey cycle as she does here (one that is played for humor, no less) is definitely not it.

Though Takanaga’s expressive artwork and deft characterization are a significant draw, this volume ultimately disappoints. For hard-core fans only.

-Review by MJ

Review copies provided by the publishers.

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!

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.

Roundtable: Gerard & Jacques

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Fumi Yoshinaga’s Gerard & Jacques is a two-volume boys’ love manga that tells the story of Jacques, a young aristocrat swept into a new, terrifying world following the death of his father, and Gerard, the unlikely man who eventually becomes his new family.

Published in English by BLU Manga (Tokyopop’s BL imprint) Gerard & Jacques was recommended highly to me when I first began reading yaoi, but I’ll admit I had some difficulty with it my first time around, due to some specific content in the manga’s opening chapter which kept me from enjoying it at all at the time.

When I began to make plans for this special week of Yoshinaga, I decided to give Gerard & Jacques another try. I was also interested to hear what some of my favorite critics (and BL fans) thought of the work, so I invited a few of them along for the ride.

Joining me in discussion are …

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BL Bookrack: Yoshinaga Special

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Welcome to the first edition of BL Bookrack, a new, monthly feature co-written with Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith. Once a month, in place of our weekly Off the Shelf column, we’ll be presenting reviews of a handful of boys’ love titles, both old and new. It is our particular pleasure to launch this feature with a focus on the works of Fumi Yoshinaga as part of Manga Bookshelf’s week-long tribute to one of our favorite mangaka.

In this month’s column, Michelle starts us off with a look at Don’t Say Any More, Darling, deeming it enjoyable, if not quite the best of Yoshinaga’s work. I follow up with two favorites, Ichigenme… The First Class is Civil Law and The Moon and the Sandals. Michelle then wraps things up with a thoughtful take on Solfege.

We hope you’ll enjoy this special Yoshinaga edition of BL Bookrack. We’ll return next week with another Off the Shelf!

Don’t Say Any More, Darling | By Fumi Yoshinaga | Published by Juné (DMP) | Rated M (Mature 18+) | Buy this book –

Don’t Say Any More, Darling is a collection of five stories by Fumi Yoshinaga—two of them not actually BL—that show glimmers of her future greatness but which are, at least in several cases, pretty durn weird.

The title story is the most straightforward boys’ love offering in the group. Kouhei and Tadashi have been friends since their school days, but the former has gone on to be a successful doctor while the latter is an impoverished lyricist who would probably starve if Kouhei didn’t stop by every once in a while. Kouhei’s parents are after him to meet a prospective bride—there’s a very amusing scene where they harangue him for being a “parasite single”—but when he meets his date, she only reminds him of Tadashi! Like most cheerful BL stories, this one ends with the boys in bed, but Yoshinaga gives this outcome a little twist by depicting Kouhei as comically traumatized by the experience.

“My Eternal Sweetheart” is the first of the weirder stories in the collection. Initially, it appears to be the story of an ailing teenager named Arthur whose immune deficiency syndrome prevents him from going outside and whose brother has built him a maternal android for a caretaker. It takes a turn when Arthur requests a male “sexaroid” to relieve his boredom, and a few other surprising twists follow. While I admire the plot of this story, it does contain an underaged sexaroid and quasi-incest, so things get a little creepy.

The two non-BL stories in the collection both have to do with making and then losing a connection with another person. In “Fairyland,” a bullied boy named Kaoru seems to have successfully wished all of humanity away. This gets rid of his tormentors, but also his family. When Kaoru meets another rare survivor, Ryohei, it seems he’s finally found someone who can understand and forgive his actions. In “One May Day,” a widower finds new love with a restaurant proprietor, only to quickly tire of her subservience and constant apologizing. This one is particularly short and odd.

My very favorite story in the collection is the last one, “The Pianist.” As a younger, haughtier man, Takayuki Date had some moderate success as a pianist and songwriter, but was never able to make it big. At the time, he never lacked for men, but now that he is older he’s having a hard time finding handsome younger guys willing to sleep with him. One day, he’s approached by a friendly college student and must figure out whether the young man is actually interested in him. The whole vibe of this story is wonderful—I really love how Yoshinaga handles the revelation that Date is not really the “debauched fallen genius” he pretends to be but rather simply lacked the talent necessary to achieve lasting success—and feels the most like Yoshinaga’s later works to me.

While Don’t Say Any More, Darling is not the best Yoshinaga manga available, it’s still intriguing and definitely worth a read.

– Review by Michelle Smith.

Ichigenme… The First Class is Civil Law, Vols. 1-2 | By Fumi Yoshinaga | Published by 801 Media (DMP) | Rated 18+ (Mature Content) | Buy volumes one & two –

Kensuke Tamiya is a serious law student who finds himself in a zemi (a small, professor-led seminar) filled entirely with lazy rich kids who have come up through the university’s affiliated schools. It is there he meets Taka-aki Tohdou, the playboy son of a politician who kisses Tamiya at their zemi‘s drunken welcome party.

Later, when Tohdou makes a serious attempt to pursue him, Tamiya protests adamantly that he’s not gay, while secretly suppressing the truth he’s known for years. As Tamiya slowly comes to terms with his sexuality, his classmates struggle with school, scandal, and the often ugly workings of the social hierarchy set up for them by their elders.

Though advertised as a “campus love story,” Ichigenme is really so much more. It is, at once, a thoughtful take on a young man’s struggle with his sexuality, an idiosyncratic romance, a jaded commentary on sexual double-standards applied to female students in Japan, and a fairly scathing look at the Japanese affiliate school system.

One of the most gratifying elements of Yoshinaga’s yaoi works is the fact that she is not afraid to write about characters who identify as gay. With Ichigenme…, she takes that one step further by actually exploring what that means for her protagonist, who, even after admitting that he could never have sex with a woman, is reluctant to accept the truth of it. Tamiya’s anxieties follow him even into the bedroom, where, though he learns to discuss what he’s doing with surprising frankness, he is unable to be open about his feelings.

With Tamiya, Yoshinaga turns two yaoi tropes on their heads–the shy, reluctant uke and the genre’s resistance to the word “gay”– transforming them from myopic clichés into realistic neuroses that actually add dimension to the character. As a result, Tamiya and Tohdou’s relationship is wonderfully awkward and slow to develop, with its sexual and romantic progression never quite in the same place.

This is particularly significant to the series’ second volume, which might otherwise be just a series of increasingly explicit sex scenes. Thankfully, the complexity of both these men and their relationship drives the story all the way through to the end. Though a second couple is introduced halfway through the second volume, presumably to add fresh romantic momentum, this diversion is hardly necessary.

As always, Yoshinaga’s gift for dialogue creates a uniquely intimate feel, bringing life and complexity even to the story’s minor characters, especially Miho Terada, a smart, studious female classmate whose place at the university is called into question after her boyfriend sends a nude photo of her to a magazine. Despite the fact that this is essentially a romance manga, one of its most affecting scenes takes place between Terada and Tamiya, in which he reveals his naiveté regarding her circumstances.

“You’re the victim here, Terada-san … it’s the guy who’s in the wrong,” Tamiya protests, to which she responds, “You’re the only one who would say that, Tamiya-chan. My father said that it was more shameful than being raped. And hearing that felt worse than being raped.”

Though Ichigenme… was released under DMP’s more explicit 801 Media imprint (and rightfully so), its sex scenes are so artful and so essential to the characters’ emotional journey, I’d consider it suitable for any adult reader, male or female, fan or non-fan.

If any of this sounds like over-praise, I promise you it’s not. Ichigenme… is a true favorite, and I recommend it with pleasure.

-Review by MJ

The Moon and the Sandals, Vols. 1-2 | By Fumi Yoshinaga | Published by Juné (DMP) | Rated M (Mature 18+) | Buy volumes one & two –

Kobayashi has a massive crush on his history teacher, Mr. Ida, but just as he’s about to confess, he discovers that Mr. Ida is embroiled in a stormy love affair of his own. As Ida pursues a future with his long-time lover, Hashizume, Kobayashi is left to find new love on his own.

When Kobayashi’s good friend and English studies savior, Rikuko, is injured in a traffic accident, she convinces her older brother, Toyo, to replace her as Kobayashi’s English tutor.

Toyo is arrogant and demanding, but working with Kobayashi seems to soften him, and in no time at all, Kobayashi has transferred his crush on Mr. Ida to his new English tutor. But can Toyo return his feelings? And what about Rikuko, who harbors the same feelings for Kobayashi?

Though this was her debut manga, Yoshinaga was already playing around with standard yaoi fantasies (in this case, the teacher/student relationship), working them ’round until they become genuinely true-to-life. As a result, Kobayashi’s crush on his teacher, Mr. Ida, reads as a poignant tale of unrequited first love rather than romantic fantasy.

This relationship rings true throughout the series, especially in a scene late in the first volume, when Kobayashi seeks out his teacher, the only gay adult he knows, to ask for information on gay sex. Ida’s discomfort with the question leaves Kobayashi pretty much to fend for himself, but it’s the reaction from Ida’s lover that makes the whole thing worthwhile.

“You’re clearly the one in the wrong here,” Hashizume says. “Homosexuals are a social minority. There aren’t many with whom we can discuss our problems, either … If he can’t ask you, who else can he ask?”

Another area where Yoshinaga really shines here is in her treatment of Kobayashi’s friend, Rikuko. One of several general complaints that can be made about yaoi as a whole is a lack of female characters in a genre written largely by women, for women. Though it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect female characters in the lead in a genre specifically portraying romance between males, it’s rather depressing to note just how often women and girls are dismissed entirely as people of worth in yaoi manga, occasionally to the point of outright misogyny. Fortunately, Yoshinaga frequently writes women into her yaoi, and she writes them well.

Not only is Rikuko a rich, nuanced character with real hopes and dreams (including a promising future as a doctor, as shown in volume two), but her confession to (and rejection by) Kobayashi is written with a level of subtlety and understanding that speaks honestly to generations of high school girls (past and present) who have had the misfortune to fall in love with their gay best friends.

Click each to enlarge, right-to-left.

Images © Fumi Yoshinaga. English translation © Digital Manga Publishing.

The series’ second volume, a series of vignettes designed primarily to accommodate sex scenes, lacks the cohesion and depth of the first. Yet even these scenes are emotionally driven and rooted firmly in the rich character development established during the first volume. Though the first volume can be enjoyed entirely on its own, readers who seek out the second volume will find some real gems scattered within, such as a scene late in the volume regarding Toyo’s plans to come out to his parents.

Simply put, The Moon and the Sandals is utterly charming, recommended for any fan of smart, romantic manga.

– Review by MJ

Solfege | By Fumi Yoshinaga | Published by Juné (DMP) | Rated YA (16+) | Buy this book –

The important thing to remember about Solfege is that it’s not actually a love story. Instead, it’s the portrait of an unsympathetic music teacher named Kugayama who is a wretched human being but is still capable of bringing something positive into the world by fostering a life-long love of music in his students.

The story begins with Kugayama imparting the basics of music unto Tanaka, a youth who looks like a delinquent but loves singing and dreams of attending a music high school. Kugayama doesn’t have very high hopes for Tanaka’s chances, but is surprised when his student ends up exceeding his expectations. When Tanaka’s mother collapses and ends up spending over a year in the hospital, Kugayama allows the boy to stay with him and pays for Tanaka to study voice with another teacher named Gotoh.

Once Tanaka’s mother recovers, he moves back home, but she promptly begins bringing men home and he turns up at Kugayama’s house again just when his former teacher is drunk and feeling horny. Kugayama proceeds to use his position as the most-admired person in Tanaka’s life to seduce his impressionable young student, and this is where I really started to hate the guy. I wished for Yoshinaga to accurately portray how traumatized a physically mature but emotionally vulnerable kid like Tanaka would be by this experience. Instead, he’s completely okay with the arrangement and the two continue to sleep together. I was disappointed.

I should’ve had faith in Yoshinaga, though, because once Gotoh finds out what’s going on, he takes immediate steps to remove Tanaka from Kugayama’s clutches. While Tanaka heads abroad to study music in Italy—and eventually becomes a success—Kugayama starts up a relationship with a Tanaka lookalike named Jun and, again, gets what’s coming to him for being such a screwed-up jerk. Scandal ensues, and it’s up to a grown-up Tanaka to meet with Kugayama again—as equals this time—and remind him of what it is that he does best.

I did not find Solfege to be in the least little bit romantic—and I’m honestly not sure how anyone could—but I did find it a complex and fascinating character study as well as a refreshing alternative to student-teacher romances that carry no repercussions for persons in a position of authority.

– Review by Michelle Smith

Flower of Life: A Love Story

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Flower of Life, Vols. 1-4 | By Fumi Yoshinaga | Published by Digital Manga Publishing | Rated YA (Young Adults 16+)

“A love story?”

Yes, I know. This is what you’re all thinking. But “a love story” is truly the way I view this series, though perhaps not in the usual way. It’s not a tale of romance (though there is a bit to be found) or even a story of deep friendship (though it’s got that, too).

The thing is, this love story is not between any of the story’s characters at all, but rather between its author, Fumi Yoshinaga, and humanity itself. Though there are many distinctive elements to Yoshinaga’s work—her character designs, her rambling dialogue, her mild fujoshi sensibility—what is most consistently recognizable in her work is her deep and abiding love for this world …

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Breaking Down Banana Fish, Vols. 5-6

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Welcome to the third installment of the Banana Fish roundtable!

This month, we tackle volumes five and six. With Yut-Lung conniving behind the scenes and Shorter’s loyalties stretched to the limit, everyone ends up in Papa Dino’s hands over the course of these volumes, and not all can survive. Ash orchestrates an elaborate escape, but his allegiance with the Chinatown gang may be lost forever.

I’m joined this round by Michelle Smith (Soliloquy in Blue), Khursten Santos (Otaku Champloo), Connie C. (Slightly Biased Manga), Eva Volin (Good Comics For Kids), and Robin Brenner (No Flying, No Tights).

Read our roundtable on volumes one and two here, and volumes three and four here.

On to part three! …

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Blood Honey

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By Sakyou Yozukura
BLU, 178 pp.
Rating: M (Mature)

Yuki Akabane is a vampire, but descended so far down the line, the only family trait he retains is a thirst for blood. His job as a nurse at a blood donor clinic keeps him hooked up with occasional meals, but his intake gets jacked up immensely by an obsessive donor named Osamu Mayazumi. Mayazumi is a teacher with a bad temper that seems to be quelled by donating blood, and thanks to a fear of needles, the only nurse he’ll trust is Akabane.

Frequent visits to the clinic shift to nightly dinners at Akabane’s home, and before they know it, the two are harboring feelings for each other more serious than those of donor and nurse.

Despite the fairly creepy premise, this series’ most consistent trait is that it is quite simply a lot of fun. Yozakura’s sense of humor fits her characters perfectly, particularly in the second half of the book, where she introduces Akabane’s precocious nephew, Kiri. The book is undoubtedly tongue-in-cheek, but it thankfully lacks the overblown ridiculousness of some humorous yaoi. As a bonus, there are some genuinely touching moments as well.

Yozukura’s artwork is quite expressive and frankly adorable, though her characters fall visually into the typical seme and uke roles, almost to the extreme. Thanks to that, both Akabane and his nephew look about fifteen, one of the book’s few major downsides.

Though it’s certainly not profound, Blood Honey is a fun, sexy, take on the current vampire trend.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

9th Sleep

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9th Sleep
By Makoto Tateno
Digital Manga Publishing, 200 pp.
Rating: 16+

Luke is the child of a “Maria possession,” meaning that his mother was still a virgin when he was born. What he soon finds out is that he is also a god-prince fallen to Earth, as well as the reincarnation of the “King’s Soul,” which he received upon the death of his father. Unwilling to wed the bride chosen for him, Luke carried that soul with him when he committed suicide sixteen years previous and placed it in the womb of the earth-woman he loved.

Now that sixteen years have passed, he must fight his “brother” Malchus for possession of their father’s soul and kingdom.

If that summary seems convoluted, that’s no mistake. The premise of this manga is extraordinarily opaque, despite the fact that the mangaka attempts to explain it repeatedly, mainly by playing out the original scenario two more times over the course of the volume. In each incarnation, Luke avoids his final standoff with Malchus by killing himself, thus impregnating another unsuspecting young woman on the earth below.

While boys’ love plotlines are rarely required to be coherent (or even to exist at all) in order to attract a major portion of their fanbase, in this case there is also no boys’ love to speak of, leaving very little for fans of the genre to latch on to. Though the mangaka does offer up very pretty drawings of her two warring brothers, even standard fan service is in short supply.

Despite some attractive artwork, a confusing, vapid plot and lack of boys’ love action leave this one-shot manga without a clear audience.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Manga Moveable Feast: Archive

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Manga Moveable Feast: The Color Trilogy

From Your Host

Reviews

Essays, Roundtables, Discussions, Podcasts

Past Feasts

  • To Terra… – hosted by Kate Dacey (The Manga Critic)
  • Mushishi – hosted by Ed Sizemore (Manga Worth Reading)
  • Emma – hosted by Matt Blind (Rocket Bomber)
  • Sexy Voice and Robo – hosted by David Welsh (Manga Curmudgeon)

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Let Dai, Vols. 1-15

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Let Dai, Vols. 1-15 | By Sooyeon Won | Published by NETCOMICS | Rated 16+ – Jaehee Yoo is a smart, responsible high school sophomore whose life is changed forever by a single chance meeting. One afternoon in Seoul, Jaehee spots a group of young gang members mugging a girl. He attempts to intervene, and is soon introduced to the leader of the gang, Dai Lee, a cruel, seemingly conscienceless boy to whom he is inexplicably drawn. After several increasingly violent encounters, Jaehee finds himself being initiated into the gang and falling into an obsessive romantic relationship with Dai. As others in his life are drawn into Dai’s world and the suffering that inevitably brings, Jaehee struggles between his obligations to friends and family and his bond with Dai, against which he feels increasingly powerless.

Let Dai is ridiculously melodramatic, unrelentingly violent, borderline misogynistic, deeply implausible, and an incredibly compelling read. The first chapter begins with the narration, “Love was like a banquet of pain,” setting the story’s melodramatic tone from the start, but this is not a bad thing, by any means. Sooyeon Won’s sense of drama and flowery language is one of the series’ greatest charms, capable of reverting even the most jaded adult woman back to her thirteen-year-old self. Won is Emily Brontë, E.M. Forester, and S.E. Hinton all rolled up into one tragically romantic girl-pleasing package. Outside the hazy, love-drunk filter of the series, Jaehee and Dai would almost certainly be unbelievable as real-life boys, but they are so lovingly and richly written, it hardly matters. Even in the final volume, as the story’s delinquent heroes are discussing F. Scott Fitzgerald and Pablo Neruda, reciting poetry, and declaring, “It’s just like the way I love you,” to each other while bicycling attractively over a forest path, it’s impossible to stop reading.

Much is made of Dai’s impact on Jaehee’s life and the lives of those around him, but the character who actually changes the most over the course of the series is Dai. At the beginning of the story, he is written as a classic sociopath. He has no regard for his safety or the safety of others, no remorse, no empathy, no tolerance for compassion, nor does he see any value in those qualities. He is unapologetically cruel, and feels no responsibility for his own actions or desires. It is desire, however, that ultimately forces him to grow. On several occasions, Dai declares that he will not forgive Jaehee for choosing to help or fulfill a commitment to someone else, yet eventually he must in order to come back to Jaehee, whom he appears to genuinely love.

Dai’s growth is slow and sometimes deceptive. For instance, at one point he arranges to have his former gang brutally beaten in front of a girl whom they gang-raped in a questionable attempt to make amends. Of course, this action’s true aim is to free Jaehee from guilt over the incident so that he can (according to Dai’s logic) be released from his obligation to the girl and commit himself more fully to Dai. Still, there are real changes in Dai as the story goes on, as he is forced to learn to respect Jaehee’s hopes and feelings and how those extend to people other than himself.

If Dai’s journey is about learning to accept the needs of others, Jaehee’s is about learning to accept himself. Strangely, though the entire series is filled with narration in which Jaehee talks about how tragic and painful Dai’s influence on his life will be, for the most part Jaehee appears happier in his life with Dai than he was before. Yes, he’s hurt people and experienced loss, and he’s certainly felt a great deal of pain over how their relationship is received by others, but he admits more than once that he doesn’t like the parts of himself that are selfless and reliable, and is genuinely thrilled with the freedom he feels when he is with Dai. It may seem odd to support a character’s quest to become more selfish, but in this case, there is a sense that if the right balance can be found, Dai can teach Jaehee to live more for himself and for the moment, and Jaehee can teach Dai to feel responsibility for others. It is this, more than anything, that makes it possible for the reader to continue to root for the relationship even as other characters are being hurt in the process.

While the story’s initial approach to its primary relationship is filled with dire warnings of pain and suffering that hover dangerously close to homophobia, Jaehee’s appeal for his mother’s acceptance of his sexuality later on in the series is very nicely written. The author unfortunately clings to Jaehee and Dai’s obsessiveness as a bit of a crutch, allowing them to repeatedly express their devotion to each other without quite admitting what that means. Both characters claim that the gender of the other “doesn’t matter,” and their on-screen sexual relationship is surprisingly chaste. Still, Jaehee’s plea for understanding and the arguments made against it by Jaehee’s mother will be sadly familiar to many gay teenagers (and adults) who have come out to their parents, and the eventual resolution between them feels very genuine.

Despite the all-consuming quality of Jaehee’s relationship with Dai, Won manages to maintain a good-sized cast of fully realized supporting characters as well. Standouts here are Eunhyung Song, Jaehee’s almost-girlfriend whose traumatic encounter with Dai’s gang breaks her in ways from which she will never recover, and Naru Hagi, a carefree, narcissistic classmate of Jaehee’s who lends an unexpected warmth to the series. Both of these characters are just as richly developed as the two leads (perhaps even more so in the case of Eunhyung) and their personal stories are incredibly compelling.

If there is one truly regrettable thing about Let Dai it is the story’s treatment of women. It can be unfair to assume that a character’s attitudes reflect the author’s, but Dai’s hatred of women is so pronounced it is difficult to ignore. Dai is first introduced beating up a high school girl, and things go downhill from there. Certainly his character is complex and deeply troubled, and the author does not mean to suggest that his actions are okay, but it does appear that she means them to be romantic, or at least attractive on some level, which is difficult to swallow. Misogyny in stories written for women is incredibly disturbing and far too common in boys’ love, and as fantastic a read as this story is, it comes uncomfortably close to crossing that line.

NETCOMICS’ online distribution of Let Dai is a pretty good deal for those who aren’t keen on re-reads (about five dollars total to view all fifteen volumes) though the quality of the scans could stand improvement. Much of the text is difficult to read at the lower of the two available screen settings, and some is virtually unreadable in either setting, particularly the frequent sections that feature gray text (lightly outlined in white) on gray or textured backgrounds. In another comic this might be an insignificant problem, but the large blocks of narration that continue throughout Let Dai make the quality of the text paramount.

Sooyeon Won’s art is beautiful, and her characters burst, lifelike, from the page. Even the darkest, most violent moments are aesthetically pleasing. The visual storytelling is very clear and easy to follow, only hindered by the quality of the onscreen reproduction of the text.

Complete in fifteen volumes, Let Dai stands out in a market flooded with one-shots and short series that can never achieve the same impact as an epic tale well told. Regardless of any complaints that can be made, this story is riveting from start to finish, visually appealing, and intricately crafted to please its target audience.

Digital access provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Totally Captivated, Vol. 6

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Totally Captivated | By Hajin Yoo | Published by NETCOMICS | Rated 16+ – Ewon Jung is a 23-year-old scholarship student in Seoul, whose curiosity over whether or not it is possible to have great sex without love (“It was possible.”) leads him to cheat on his boyfriend, Jiho. Devastated and yearning for revenge, Jiho persuades his new boyfriend, a small-time loan shark named Mookyul Eun, to force Ewon into service at his office where he is expected to run errands, clean, and balance the books, all without payment. Unfortunately for Jiho, Mookyul soon develops an interest in Ewon, and it isn’t long before Jiho ends up shunted aside once again. Mookyul is controlling and occasionally violent, and Ewon is far from a pushover, but they eventually reach a mutually beneficial arrangement and begin living together. Things do not continue peacefully for long, however, as Ewon becomes aware that he is falling harder for Mookyul than he intended and experiences his first real taste of jealousy. Though the story’s premise initially seems contrived, its real function is to provide a stylish, humorous background to what is essentially a very moving story about two deeply damaged men learning how to love.

In volume five, Ewon finally broke off his tumultuous relationship with Mookyul, unwilling to continue as his lover while Mookyul was still providing sexual favors to his company’s CEO—a man who had long ago rescued a young Mookyul and raised him as his own child. Unable to withstand the separation from Ewon, Mookyul confronted his father figure, breaking all ties with him and his company, and as volume six begins, he sets out to find Ewon and win him back. Ewon consents, but their reunion is short-lived, as Mookyul’s former business rival sets up a plot to ruin him now that he is no longer in the CEO’s favor. Mob madness ensues, Ewon is kidnapped, Mookyul is injured, Mookyul disappears, Ewon runs away, all leading up to the real drama of the volume, in which Ewon begs Mookyul to leave him so that he may be free of the constant terror of losing him. This is the real crux of the story, and ultimately provides the emotional payoff for the series.

It has been hinted throughout the series that Ewon’s absent parents were likely still alive, and this is finally confirmed in volume six, along with the sickening story of how he was abandoned as a child in the middle of the woods, essentially left to die. It is interesting to note that while both Ewon and Mookyul have serious abandonment issues, they have learned to deal with them in completely different ways. While Mookyul grew up to become controlling and possessive, determined to cage anything that might run from him, Ewon learned to avoid any real human connection, carefully protecting himself from the possibility of ever being abandoned again.

One of the things that has always been refreshing about Totally Captivated is that it is not a coming-out story. Ewon never agonizes over or apologizes for his sexuality (something he’s been aware of since the sixth grade), and he is completely comfortable with himself and unusually self-aware for his age. He knows what he likes and who he is sexually, and is completely up front about that with his partners (as they generally are with him). The dramatic benefit of this is that instead of having to focus on the characters’ feelings about being gay, the story is free to explore much further. Though the series does not shy away from the characters’ sexuality, its real focus is on emotional intimacy, and it is this that drives the story forward, especially in the final volume.

This series also avoids the thinly-veiled homophobia that is paradoxically present in so much of the boys’ love genre. “I don’t want some stinking homophobe to buy me a drink,” Ewon says to a co-worker early on in the series, and this attitude is never compromised at any point. The story never avoids specifics about the characters’ sexuality, neither does it portray its primary relationship as “forbidden love” nor insinuate that it is fundamentally inferior to heterosexual love—themes that are unfortunately common in many popular boy’s love stories.

Thankfully, this volume is free of the one discomfiting boys’ love cliché that is too often present earlier on, namely Mookyul’s habit of bullying Ewon for sex that is more frequent or rough than he is comfortable with (made tolerable only by the fact that Ewon proves many times over that he is capable of extracting himself from any situation he truly does not want to be a part of). After some shaky moments in the middle of the series that came uncomfortably close to romanticizing Mookyul’s controlling (even sadistic) tendencies, volume five brought Ewon back into control (despite the fact that he still calls his lover “boss”), with the two men finally reaching equal ground in volume six. Considering the extensive damage both Ewon and Mookyul bring to the table, it’s not surprising that they would fall into unhealthy patterns with each other as their relationship develops, but rooting for them became difficult during those middle volumes while the relationship was clearly abusive. With this in mind, volume six is a balm for the reader, as both characters shed their most destructive habits and are finally able to provide the emotional security each other requires.

The character designs in this series have never been anything special, but with characterizations so strong, they almost don’t have to be. What is lacking in design is made up for in substance, and though more distinctive art would certainly enhance the story’s effect, the series is not gravely damaged without it. The visual storytelling is clear and easy to follow and if the designs are merely serviceable, they at least do not get in the way. All the characters are visually expressive when they need to be, and many are downright poignant, particularly Ewon’s ex, Jiho, and his long-time friend, Dohoon Moon, who puts aside his own feelings to protect Ewon when he most needs it.

In its early volumes, Totally Captivated was smart, sexy, and fabulously dramatic. Now at the end of its final volume, it has also grown into an unexpectedly satisfying love story, rivaling the best of its genre.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock