Yaoi manga reviews: the good, the bad, and the meh

[geri_chan]

I'm on vacation and have been trying to catch up on my stacks of unread manga. There were a few nice gems in the stack, but a lot of them were just "meh"--I have to stop buying books just because there's a cute bishie guy with glasses on the cover.

Sea View by Ayumi Kano (June) has a beautiful cover, which is mainly why I bought it, and the story isn't bad, but it's a real stretch to call it even "BL." The title story is about a boy named Kei who enrolls in the school where his grandfather used to teach architecture. He loves his grandfather deeply, and when his grandfather's letters stop coming, he's naturally worried and wants to find him. He ends up befriending and seeking help from his aloof roommate Michiru, who seems to have a connection with the grandfather. The story actually is very interesting and well-written, but there's no sex or real romance--not even so much as a kiss. The only thing that really makes it BL is that the friendship between Kei and Michiru seems a little too intense to be strictly platonic. If this had just been billed as a gen manga with overtones of BL, it would have been fine, but since this was a June release, I ended up feeling slightly cheated. Also, the fate of the grandfather is left open-ended, although you can guess what probably happened. I'm not sure if the author left it open because she intended to write a sequel someday, but I would have preferred to have the story resolved one way or the other. There's a secondary story, "Thou of the Blossoms," about a friendship/romance that blossoms between a reporter and the teenage son of an old and wealthy family, who is distrustful of reporters after having been injured by one who broke into his family's private garden. The romance here is slightly more overt, but only slightly--the romance only goes as far as an embrace, not even a kiss.

***

The next two books involve stories about authors (who wear glasses, naturally) struggling with writer's block. Sounds like a promising scenario, but both authors are so self-centered that I didn't like them and couldn't fully root for them even after they reformed.

Barefoot Waltz by Romuco Miike (June) is the less offensive of the two. The author, Abe, is startled when a young man, Katsumi turns up on his doorstep out of the blue. It turns out that Abe had sex with Katsumi two years ago and then kicked him out. Katsumi has tried sleeping with other men, but couldn't forget Abe, and moves in with him uninvited. Abe is rather taken aback, but feels guilty about how he treated Katsumi before, and lets him stay, and gradually realizes that he likes having Katsumi around. It turns out that his writer's block, and the way he used Katsumi in the past, along with his current inability to fully commit to Katsumi, all stem from a traumatic break-up with his previous lover, and he's now afraid to expose himself emotionally in either work or romance. His insecurities grow worse when Katsumi's ex-boyfriend pays a visit to check up on him, but eventually Katsumi is able to break through his armor.

Again, it's not actually a bad story, but it's slightly on the "meh" side--there's nothing particularly captivating about the art or characters. Although he had reasons, Abe was kind of a jerk to Katsumi in the past, and one wonders why Katsumi remains so obsessed about a guy who didn't treat him well, when he has an attractive ex-lover who obviously still cares about him a lot. There are some other, shorter stories to round out the anthology that are nice, but nothing special. The problem I have with most anthologies is that there isn't enough time to really get into the level of depth of characterization that I like. Smut is great, but what really hooks me is a good story and good characterization--which is what is so great about Haru wo Daiteita or even the non-overtly yaoi (but with subtle hints of BL) Petshop of Horrors is that the characters change and grow as the series progress.

Two of Hearts by Kana Miyamoto (Deux) is more problematic. Haruya, a magazine writer who has the potential to be a good novelist but can't quite pull it together, finds a teenage boy, Maki, attempting to wash his clothes in the ocean, and ends up taking him home like a stray puppy. Maki has serious Issues with a capital "I"--he has grown up poor, with a neglectful mother, and has an OCD-like mania about washing (because he worries that he smells, due to a hurtful remark made by a classmate back in grade school), and he has a phobia about being touched because he's thinks he's "dirty." (Fortunately, this has nothing to do with sexual abuse, but relates back to the childhood incident where he was told that he smelled bad.) As Maki grows to trust Haruya, he discovers that he doesn't mind Haruya touching him, and this eventually leads to touching of a more sexual nature by the openly gay Haruya--which I found really skeevy, because there's a big power imbalance between them, not just in age, but in Maki's childlike trust and vulnerability towards Haruya. On top of that, Haruya already has a lover, his editor Yagisawa, who is obviously in love with Haruya, but Haruya treats their relationship as more of a casual friends-with-benefits type of deal. He later admits that he knew how Yagisawa felt about him, but pretended not to. Yagisawa is a really nice guy who cares about Haruya, has faith in his talent, and encourages him to write that novel, but it's only after Maki appears on the scene that Haruya gets serious about writing. Naturally, Yagisawa gets jealous when he realizes that Haruya is in love with Maki, long before Haruya realizes it himself. And that leads to another part about this story that I hated--Yagisawa catches Maki alone at Haruya's house and attempts to rape him, not out of lust, but out of revenge. (Haruya arrives in time to stop him.) It just seemed really out of character for him, and I didn't really believe that he would do it for any reason except that the author wanted to add a little more drama to the story. I can believe that he would lash out verbally at Maki and say hurtful things, but not that he would physically attack him. Yagisawa later apologizes for what he did, and Haruya also apologizes for the way he treated Yagisawa, and Maki doesn't really blame Yagisawa, because he understands that Yagisawa loves Haruya as much as he does, but I just felt like everybody forgave each other way too easily.

Anyway, I just couldn't get into this story, because I felt that Maki was too screwed up to have a healthy relationship with Haruya at this point, and because I liked Yagisawa so much that I hated Haruya for using him, and I hated the way that Yagisawa was made into an attempted rapist.

It seems to be a standard trope in manga, and in a few J-dramas that I've seen, that writers are loners with varying degrees of arrogance and misanthropy. I've been reading a shoujo manga called "The Name of the Flower" with an author who is sort of like this, although he's not really a bad guy; he just cut himself off from the world after a traumatic incident in his past.

***

Breath by Chifumi Ochi (Yaoi Generation) has beautiful artwork and a repulsive storyline. Yangai (gorgeous guy with long red hair, which is what caught my attention on the cover) picks up a stranger in a bar one night. Even though the stranger, Arata, is a virgin, they have passionate sex over and over again that night. (Which makes me wonder how the poor guy can walk the next morning, but that isn't what bothered me about the story.) Arata was drunk during their tryst, and when he wakes up the next morning he is repulsed by Yanagi and what they did together: he calls Yanagi a creep and says that it makes him sick that they slept together. As far as Yanagi knew, it was consensual sex, so Arata's reaction naturally makes him angry and upset. And then he finds out that Arata is the twin brother of his best friend, and Arata, who doesn't know how to get along with people other than his brother, is desperate for his brother not to find out what happened between him and Yanagi. Yanagi decides to get revenge by blackmailing Arata into being his sex slave--and that's where the story turned me off. I am not into non-con at all--Yanagi has genuine reason to be angry, but blackmail and rape is going too far.

There's more passionate sex that Arata enjoys in spite of himself, and towards the end of volume 1, Yanagi notices that Arata is tired and on the verge of collapse (because he hasn't eaten all day), and finds himself looking after his "slave" and making Arata something to eat. Both men are bewildered by Yanagi's sudden kindness, so it seems like he's actually beginning to care about Arata, but by that point, I didn't think that the author could redeem Yanagi enough to make me forgive him for his previous behavior. I was picking up a kind of hinky vibe between Arata and his brother, so I'm sort of curious to see how things play out, but I don't know if I'm curious enough to read through more chapters of non-con.

I've since read reviews of Books 2 and 3 that indicate that there is an explanation for why Yanagi is such a jerk: it sounds like he was probably sexually abused himself when he was younger, which perhaps makes him a little more sympathetic but still doesn't excuse his behavior, at least in my opinion. I think it would be great if he eventually expressed remorse to Arata, but I can't ever bring myself to root for a rapist to live happily ever after with his victim, no matter how remorseful he is and how much he has changed for the better. The reviews also state that Arata's brother reveals a darker side, which confirms my suspicions, and that Book 3 explains why Arata was behaving so out of character on the night that Yanagi first picked him up. So I sort of want to find out what happens, but still don't know if I want it wade through more non-con scenes, let alone pay good money for the books, which could be better spent elsewhere.

***

Now, some reviews of manga that I actually did like! These three titles had very fun, engaging stories, but there's little or no explicit sex in them, so if you are looking for sexy timez, it would be better to look elsewhere:

Voice or Noise by Yamimaru Enjin (Blu). To be honest, the premise sounded kind of dumb: Shinichiro, a teenage boy, has a pet dog who is behaving strangely. His vet can't find anything wrong with the dog, but suggests that Shinichiro take Flappy (the dog) to go see his friend Narusawa, a college professor with the ability to communicate with animals. Narusawa is reluctant to help--he's aloof and standoffish, and doesn't get along well with people; he's always felt set apart from other people because of his unusual gift. But Shinichiro is persistent, and Narusawa eventually gives in. Shinichiro keeps coming around to visit him after that, and the two of them strike up an odd friendship, and Narusawa also seems to gain more interest in the boy after he finds out that Shinichiro can hear Acht, Narusawa's snarky talking black cat. Acht's snarky attitude reminds me a bit of Yoriuchi-san from Bleach, and he adds a lot of humor to the story, but it turns out that there's pathos behind the humor: Acht can speak to humans, but not to other cats, so he lives a very lonely life behind the cheerful front that he puts up.

The characters are likeable, and the story is a nice blend of angst and humor. It's obvious that Shinichiro and Narusawa are developing feelings for each other, but they don't take the relationship to a physical level, which is something of a relief, since Shinichiro is about 15 (just about to graduate from middle school), and Narusawa is probably in his mid-to-late twenties, since Shinichiro says that Narusawa is nearly twice his age. I know that many yaoi fans don't mind large age differences, but I've always been kind of squicked by stories where adults sleep with a minor, which is why I usually don't like teacher/student stories. (Although I make an exception for "Passion" and "Hey, Sensei," mainly because students are the aggressors and the manga-ka write a good enough story to make me overlook the squick.)

Anyway, I quite like this story and thought it was a lot of fun. I just finished Book 1 and am about to start Book 2, which sounds like it will reveal a bit more about Acht.

Alley of First Love by Ellie Mamahara (Blu) is not particularly original, but it's a cute and sweet love story about two childhood friends who are reunited after an absence of several years. Shusuke has secretly been in love with his best friend Atsushi since high school, and was very hurt when Atsushi decided to attend a foreign university without discussing it with him first. Six years later, Atsushi unexpectedly returns home, and Shusuke finds that his feelings for Atsushi are as strong as ever. It's obvious to the reader, if not to Shusuke, that Atsushi likes him, too, but of course it takes them the full length of the book and several misunderstandings before they finally confess their feelings to each other. It's light-hearted, with a lot of humor--there's one hilarious scene where Shusuke dashes off in a panda costume to stop Atsushi from attending a matchmaking party (he was working at what seems to be some kind of street fair)--and the characters are likeable. They do have sex at the end, but nothing explicit is shown, which is kind of a pity, but I still enjoyed it enough to want to seek out another title by the manga-ka called "Baseball Heaven." It's advertised at the end of the book with an April 2009 release date, but I can't find it listed at Amazon, Anime Nation, or the Blu website, so it may be one of the titles that got suspended due to Tokyopop's money problems. Ah...just did a web search and found it listed on an anime vendor's site with a release date of 2010, so I guess it just got delayed.

Brilliant Blue by Saemi Yorita (Doki Doki) is another humorous title that's a lot of fun to read. Shouzo has returned to his hometown to take over the family construction business after his father is injured, and gets reaquainted with his childhood friend Nanami. He remembers Nanami as a plump, homely crybaby that Shouzo used to protect from bullies, but he's since lost weight and bleached his hair, and is now a very attractive young man. (One reviewer was bothered a bit by the implicit size-ism in this, as if one has to be thin to be attractive, but otherwise gave the story a high rating.) I'm not sure whether Shouzo is gay--he's single and gets very uncomfortable when relatives and neighbors question him about girlfriends and marriage, which might be a hint that he is, or might just be normal discomfort with people prying into his personal life, and his mother pressuring him to settle down and get married. Anyway, he does find his feelings for Nanami changing from a big-brotherly sort of friendship into something more romantic.

Nanami, in some ways, has the mentality of a child, which makes a consensual romance problematic. He's very innocent, naive, and impressionable--he loves to eat, and it's easy to distract or bribe him with food; Shouzo toys with him at times by holding out a morsel of food to him like a fisherman dangling bait. More problematic is the time that he befriends a little girl on the playground and takes her off to have dinner with him, not realizing that he could be accused of kidnapping and molestation. The mother does, in fact, initially accuse Nanami of kidnapping, although Shouzo is able to clear things up. And it's downright creepy when Nanami's naivete leads to him being taken advantage of sexually by Douwaki, one of the engineers that Shouzo and Nanami work with. (Nanami is an electrician with his family's business, who are often contracted to work for Shouzo's company.) Douwaki is the one who gave Nanami the stunning makeover, and he pressures Nanami into having sex with him, usually by luring him out to dinner first. Nanami's clearly uncomfortable with it, but when he tries to excuse himself and go home, Douwaki acts hurt that Nanami's rejecting him, and says that it's all right for them to be together because they're in love. It's obvious that Nanami doesn't love him, but because he's told that it's true, he thinks that it must be so and has to obey Douwaki. The only sex scenes in the first volume are between Douwaki and Nanami, and are not very explicit, and not very sexy because of the creepy dub-con vibe.

Shouzo eventually figures out what's going on, and helps Nanami break free of Douwaki by saying that Nanami has to choose between a tonkatsu (pork cutlet) dinner with him and sex with Douwaki, and Nanami chooses tonkatsu in a heartbeat. It's almost heartbreaking, how relieved he is, to the point of tears, when he realizes that he doesn't have to sleep with Douwaki anymore.

However, while Nanami is childish, he isn't stupid: he's actually quite intelligent, but doesn't do well on written tests. He's a whiz at math, and a very skilled and competent electrician. Because he does so badly on tests, he's never applied for a formal electrician's license, and even his family has given up on the idea. Shouzo, however, insists that Nanami is smart enough to pass the test, and forces Nanami to study for the licensing exam while Shouzo studies for his own homebuilding exam. He passes with flying colors, and this seems to be set up as a step towards making him independent and self-reliant enough that he and Shouzo can eventually have a relationship without it having the balance of power problem, although I still think it's going to be a hard sell with Nanami's childish nature. Still, I look forward to seeing how the story develops in Book 2.

It is clear, at least, that Nanami is genuinely attracted to Shouzo in a way that he wasn't to Douwaki. Shouzo plants a good-night kiss on Nanami's forehead near the end of Book 1, and Nanami goes home practically floating on clouds. And it's clear that Shouzo would never take advantage of Nanami the way that Douwaki did. But I wonder if it is slightly problematic that Shouzo is exerting control over Nanami, such as by forcing him to take the exam, even if he is doing it with good intentions? In spite of my doubts, I really find myself rooting for this couple: Nanami is so cute and sweet, and Shouzo is a bit snarky, blunt to the point of rudeness, but he has a good heart. He likes to tease Nanami a lot, but I never felt like it crossed over into meanness.

Sadly, perhaps, the kiss on the forehead is all the action we get between Nanami and Shouzo in Book 1. Even the author jokes about it by saying in the afterword, "A whole volume...a peck on the forehead." *sweatdrop*

***

Will try to get around to doing a few more reviews (and writing some fic) before the vacation is over. There were a few shoujo titles that I wanted to rec, and some other yaoi titles that I didn't get around to.