Review: MISTER MISTRESS

 I can't not close out this month by shooting the metaphorical fish in the barrel - i.e., reaching deep into my boxes of BL manga and finding some silly-looking stinker to review.

MISTER MISTRESS (Aijin Incubus), by Rize Shinba.  First published in 2005 and first published in North America in 2008.

PLOT:

Fujimaru is your standard horny hetero teen boy, and it turns out that his teenage libido is the key to unlocking the secret of his late grandfather's house: an incubus named Rei.  Rei craves Fujimaru's body and the raging hormones within it, but Fujimaru isn't very keen on the idea.  The more he tries to resist, the harder Rei tries to trick him into sex.  How long can Fujimari hold out against such temptation?

Merry Month of Manga: TOMCATS

One of the advantages of a month of one-shots is that it gives me a chance to do some deep diving in my piles of BL books, since most of those are stand-alone volumes.

One of the disadvantages is that means I end up encountering oddities like this.

TOMCATS (Tenshi no Jikan), by Mashiro Minamino.  First published in 2005 and first published in North America in 2008.

PLOT:

Mao was just another disaffected young man slaving his days away in a pizza parlor.  Then he meets Tora, a strong, silent man who becomes just as fond of Mao as he is of his cats (who just so happen to be little people with cat ears and tails who are capable of speech, understanding, and cooking).  Tora's yakuza past eventually catches up to him, forcing Tora to flee with Mao and their cats to the desert.  While Mao and Tora adjust to their new life, their pets discover magic birds, never-ending food supplies, and a cat god.

Merry Month of Shojo Review #8: FLOCK OF ANGELS

 I'm sure that the mangaka had nothing but good intentions with this one, but good intentions only get you so far with metaphors handled this badly.

FLOCK OF ANGELS (Tenshi no Mure), by Shoko Hamada.  First published in 2003 and first published in North America in 2007.

PLOT:

Over 100 years, a strange meteor fell to earth bringing with it the angeloid virus.  When infected, it would cause people to sprout wings, leading to years of persecution and abuse.  The disease had all but slipped from memory until a high-school boy named Shea spontaneously grows wings and his story goes public.  He soon becomes a spokesperson for angeloid awareness, which leads him to encounters with rich weirdos, a bigoted uncle, paparazzi, and the world's most popular boy band, just to name a few.

Review: WALKIN' BUTTERFLY

There's a lot of great josei that got completely overlooked in the 2000s, and few were as overlooked as this title.

WALKIN' BUTTERFLY (U-okin * Batafurai), by Chihiro Tamaki.  First published in 2003 and first published in North America in 2007.

PLOT:

Michiko has always been taller than average.  By the time she turns 19 she's over six feet tall, and years of teasing, comments, and insults from others have given her a major complex about her height.  She feels physically and psychologically isolated from the world, to the point that she dropped out of school and is now stuck in a series of dead-end jobs with a gaggle of fellow dropouts.  

Michiko's world changes when a pizza delivery gone wrong leads to her being mistaken for a model.  When a designer declares that she will never be a proper model, Michiko is inspired like never before.  Now she'll take on anyone and anything to become a model, if simply to show that cocky jackass just how wrong they are.

Review: LOVE ROUND!!

 Let's wrap this month up with another one-shot from one of modern BL's most popular creators.

LOVE ROUND!! (Rabu Raundo!!), by Hinako Takanaga.  First published in 2003 and first published in North America in 2009.

PLOT:

Kaoru Komatsuna is very sensitive about his feminine name and his equally feminine looks, particularly when tall, muscular, traditionally handsome guys like Kubo comment on it.  Meanwhile, Kubo is just impressed that such a small guy could send him flying with just a single punch.  He encourages Kaoru to join his boxing gym, where Kaoru might succeed as a flyweight fighter.  Soon enough Kubo finds himself falling for the fiery Kaoru, but can he stop sticking his foot in his mouth long enough to make his feelings known?

Review: KIREPAPA

 Well, it's time to dig once more into my inordinately large pile of bad BL and fish out another example to take to task, and this one even manages to tie into the fact that I'm posting this on Father's Day.

KIREPAPA, by Ryo Tanagi.  First published in 2003 and first published in North America in 2009.

PLOT:

Chisato is a single father who is beyond overprotective.  He fears that every boy that comes into the life of his innocent, waifish son Riju will try to assault him, so Chisato routinely scares away his son's classmates with harsh words and the occasional laxative-spiked snack.  The only boy he hasn't been able to detour is Shunsuke.  Things only get worse when he discovers that this annoying teen boy also moonlights as a novelist, one that Chisato has admired for years.  Can Chisato come to terms with this revelation and his own changing feelings for Shunsuke?

Review: SEDUCE ME AFTER THE SHOW

June is Pride Month, and as such we're going to be doubling up on reviews.  We'll be covering two manga per week: one BL title, one yuri title.  We'll be starting out with our best foot forward for BL, with yet another anthology by one of our favorite mangaka.

SEDUCE ME AFTER THE SHOW (Sho ga Hanetara Aimasho), by est em.  First published in 2006 and first published in North America in 2008.

PLOT:

This anthology covers the travails of men (and cats?) who are torn between their passion for their crafts and the alluring men who wander into their lives.  Be they dancers, painters, actors, or musicians, all of them end up surrendering to love to try and overcome the pain of their pasts and the complications of their present.

Merry Month of (Shojo) Manga: QUEEN OF RAGTONIA

One of the joys of doing these month-long marathons is digging deep into my collection of books to review and finding some hidden treasures - oddball series from obscure (and often long-gone) publishers that never got a fair chance to shine.

QUEEN OF RAGTONIA (Ragutonia), by Chika Shiomi.  First published in 2006 and first published in North America in 2009.

PLOT:

The kingdom of Pharsia is under attack from a necromancer who is sucking life force from its people and turning them into demons.  It seems that no one can stop him, but two people are determined to try.  One of them is Falsa, the last surviving member of the royal family.  Despite the necromancer stealing the sight from one eye and her ability to use her legs, she's determined to find a legendary sword, and save both the kingdom and the poor souls trapped by these demons.  The other is Cardus, a gentle giant from a small village who lost one of his own eyes to the demons.  While he's strong enough to both wield the sword and carry Falsa, he's also sympathetic enough to show kindness to the same demon who took half his sight.

Merry Month of Manga Review: LOVE FOR DESSERT

In 2008, Aurora Publishing hoped to reach that ever-elusive josei audience with a few anthologies of their own.

If this was the best they had to offer, it's little wonder that they failed.

LOVE FOR DESSERT (Nosatsu Cream), by Hana Aoi.  First published in 2007 and first published in North America in 2008.



PLOT:

This racy collection of short stories share the stories of a business woman who discovers her surly coworker loves her covered in whipped cream, another who finds her aimless boyfriend more alluring after he gets a suit, a high school girl who is disappointed to learn that her childhood sweetheart is far less princely than she remembered, a hostess whose virginal art school classmate offers to serve as her bodyguard, an unemployed woman whose fortune leads her to a tutoring gig and her new love, and a college girl who discovers that her spacey boyfriend may be more caring that she realized.

Merry Month of Manga Review: LOVE MACHINE

So do you remember Chobits? Did you ever wonder what a BL version of that might look like, particularly if you took out all the good parts?  Well do I have a manga for you!

LOVE MACHINE (Etowa), by Amayo Tsuge.  First published in 2006 and first published in North America in 2009.

PLOT:

Kokuyo is a cranky, reclusive author whose grueling schedule has often landed him in the hospital.  His friend Saeki tries to help him by giving a 'replicant' named Shiro, an android that will take care of his chores and keep an eye on his health.  Kokuyu initially resents Shiro's presence, but after a while he finds himself caring for Shiro.  Kokuyo finds himself wondering if it's possible to love an artificial being?  Is it possible that Shiro could be capable of returning them as well?

STORY:

So this is neither the first or the last work to ponder the possibility of falling in love with a robot.  Hell, it's not even the first manga to go there.  So what makes this one any different?  Well, I guess it's distinguished mostly by its ineptitude and its inability or unwillingness to explore the problems with a human/robot romance.

The relationship between Kokuyu and Shiro doesn't so much progress as it does jump from one bullet point to the next.  The two of them are such extremes that it should take some time for Shiro's gentility to wear Kokuyu's grumpiness and win him over.  Tsuge doesn't want to bother with that, though.  All it takes to win Kokuyu over is a simple robot health crisis, and he almost instantly interprets that affection as love.  At least Shiro's change in feelings are explained slightly better, as he interacts with similar androids who have themselves learned to love.  The story also implies that this breaks their brains to the point where they start to lose their memories, but who cares!  It sets enough precedent for him to jump to that conclusion that he must love his master and that they must have sex to demonstrate it.  It's a good thing that he's fully functional and anatomically correct, or else the story wouldn't be able to shove in any sort of sex!  You can't simply jump from plot point to plot point as drastically as Tsuge does here.  Even if the reasoning is bad or weak, you still need some sort of transition or explanation to justify such extreme turns in such extreme (and quite frankly shallow) characters.

This is bad enough, but there's also all sorts of problems with a relationship between a human and an android that she doesn't even bother to bring up, much less address.  Say what you will about works like Chobits or Absolute Boyfriend, but they do at least address some of the issues that come with such a relationship.  They suggest that substituting an artificial lover for one of flesh and blood is not entirely healthy, that those who do so may have to make some serious sacrifices, and the question of just how much these feelings are due to programming and how much is due to some sort of free will.  They might not always stick with those ideas, but they consider them long enough to stick with the reader.  Then there's Love Machine, which doesn't even let such things cross its mind for a moment.  Nope, Kokuyu loves Shiro and Shiro loves him and that's enough for everyone!  What's really strange is that Tsuge does kind of address it in the second half.  There she focuses on Seiki and his own support android.  He's far more friendly, so with him it's not so much about the robot reforming the man so much as it is about him coming to regard his android like a sentient being.  His falling in love is handled with more sensitivity and more gravity than the previous one.  It should also be noted that when his bosses suggest turning these androids into sexbots, he's horrified at the notion.  At least he he knows exploitation when he sees it.  Honestly, I wondered why this guy wasn't the protagonist.

The whole thing is finished off with a tossed-off story about a teenage vampire and his boyfriend, and the only thing I took away from that was that the boyfriend was so horny and dumb that he's perfectly willing to risk anemia just so he can bang his wee little boyfriend on the school roof.  It's a rather silly and underwhelming end to a book that mostly frustrated me.  Love Machine has a premise that's ripe for thoughtful drama, but it chooses instead to ignore that all just so it can jerkily follow a very basic romantic trajectory. 

ART:

Tsuge's not much better at sequential art than she is at storytelling.  Her characters are flatly drawn and her faces are not only almost always the same, but very stiff and occasionally just plain weird-looking.  I'd complain that Shiro and all his fellow androids look the same, but as androids made in the same line this actually makes some sense.  She's clearly got a preference for pairing up her older semes with ukes that look so tiny and boy-like that it becomes kind of creepy.  Even the high school vampire one suffers from this.  Her panels and pages don't look bad, but the backgrounds are just as flat as the characters themselves and the panels lack any sort of real imagination or beauty to them.  It's just a mundane looking book with a few odd and awkward spots here and there.

RATING:

Love Machine has a good premise that's utterly wasted on this mangaka.  She doesn't have the writing chops to give the story the sort of depth it needs and her artwork lacks both the skill and the charm it would take to overcome her poor writing. 

This book was published by Aurora Publishing.  It is currently out of print.

Merry Month of Manga Review: NOODLE SHOP AFFAIR

I can't believe it's taken me this long into the month to get around to a book from Aurora Press.  Back at the height of last decade's manga boom, they were one of the most prolific BL publishers around.  Sadly they too were victims of the economic downturn, but not without leaving books like today's selection.

NOODLE SHOP AFFAIR (Himitsu na Kankei), by CJ Michalski.  First published in 2002 and first published in North America in 2009.

PLOT:

Ukyo is the heir to a powerful Yakuza clan, but a chance encounter left him utterly smitten with an adorable ramen shop employee named Kakeru.  Just as he's prepared to declare his love, Ukyo discovers that Kakeru has Yakuza trouble of his own.  Kakeru has no love for the Yakuza as they split up his family, hurt his father, and are threatening to close the shop over a massive debt.  Ukyo is prepared to do anything to help Kakeru whether it's posing as a poor employee or taking on a bit of a secret identity to dole out some well-earned mob justice.

STORY:

I've got to hand it to Michalski here.  There are plenty of Yakuza-themed BL works out there, but this might be the only one I've encountered that you could genuinely call light-hearted.  There are a lot of dramatic elements at play here, but she juggles them so nicely that they don't spoil the pleasantness of the romance.

Ukyo and Kakeru are not terribly spectacular as characters.  Kakeru is little more than a pleasant boy, and apparently his looks and generic good demenor is more than enough to make Ukyo's heart go pitter-pat (and his nose drip with blood).  I will say this much for Ukyo: he may be the seme here, but he's got a lot more humility and emotion than one usually associates with that role.  He's not aloof - if anything, he tends to wear his emotion on his sleeves.  That means he's the one who is usually blushing and generally overreacting to Kakeru's perceived attractiveness, even as he both tries to play it cool and keep his secret identity a secret.  He's not too proud as a character to serve as the butt of the joke sometimes, and this goes a long way towards making Ukyo a surprisingly endearing protagonist. 

That's good because the plot itself is kind of thin.  The premise starts off fine, if a bit farcical, but the tragedy in Kakeru's backstory isn't given enough time or importance to give them the impact they need to be properly tragic.  It's clear that the ending was rushed as stuff tends to just happen suddenly in the second half with little explanation.  It's also clear that Michalski was determined to make this a neat and tidy happy ending, logic be damned.  It suits the bright mood of the work overall, but it doesn't feel entirely earned.  Still, I can forgive it to a degree because it's so light and happy that it's hard to get too mad at it.  After all, I'm used to Yakuza-based BL being as grim and gritty as the genre will allow, as well as needlessly melodramatic.  There's plenty of room for one that dares to be more of a traditional romantic comedy.

ART:

Normally with BL artists they can either draw great looking characters overall or they can't draw a guy to save their lives.  Here I get the feeling that Michalski has much more of a fondness for drawing semes than ukes.  Ukyo and his fellow Yakuza bruisers are rather gangly, but they also have these solid, square-jawed faces that are wonderfully expressive at times.  Ukyo benefits most from this, as it adds to his adorable little freak-outs.  In comparison, Kakeru is flat and generic looking for an uke, and he's drawn so young-looking that it makes Ukyo look like a pedophile. 

Maybe that's the reason that there is pretty much nothing explicit to be found in the book, despite what the cover might warn.  Kakeru gets a few threats of rape, but mercifully that is never followed through with.  It's so tame that Ukyo and Kakeru only kiss a couple of times.  Those wanting some proper smut might be disappointed, but any explicit action would have spoiled the pleasant mood that Michalski worked so hard to cultivate, so I'm more than willing to let it pass.  The pages are fairly full and the backgrounds rather indifferent, but the panels flow well from one to the next.  Overall I was pleased with the art, as Michalski brings enough charm and skill to the page to make up for the more conventional elements.

RATING:

If you're like me and have been craving some genuinely cheerful BL, then Noodle Shop Affair just might help curb that hunger.  It's not quite good enough to satisfy it entirely, but it's still a welcome repast from what is otherwise a lot of heavy, overbearing material.

This book was published by Aurora Press and is currently out of print.

One Volume Wonder: RED BLINDS THE FOOLISH

Sorry for the delay folks - I was finally able to rouse myself from turkey-induced stupor and able to tear myself away from many an online deal to offer up one last review this month, as well as a return of the One Volume Wonder.

Now, I am not afraid to admit that I do read and enjoy yaoi.  I am also not afraid to admit that when it comes to yaoi, I am very particular about which ones I read, because sadly Sturgeon's Law applies to yaoi, i.e. that 90% of is awful.

Originally I was going to use this spot to review yet another work by Fumi Yoshinaga, who did quite a few one-shot yaoi stories before branching off into josei.  I've already covered two of her works, though, so I decided to turn my focus on yet another underrated mangaka who is known for both BL and josei works: the unconventional (and uncapitalized) est em.  She's getting a bit more exposure thanks to sites like JManga, but today I want to look at one of her previous, physically published works.

RED BLINDS THE FOOLISH (Oroka-mono wa Aka o Kirau), by est em.  First published in 2008, and first published in North America in 2008.

PLOT:  Rafita is the latest and greatest thing on the Spanish matador scene, famed for his brilliant red costume as well as his stoic and fearless performance in the ring.  He soon takes up with Mauro, one of the butchers who processes the bulls that Rafita slays.  Rafita treats their relationship as if it's no big deal, but soon Rafita starts to lose his nerve in the ring, and the cause may stem from Mauro.  There are also stories about the soccer fan who meets up with the security guard who gave him quite the shiner in a mid-game brawl, a writer with an attachment to an old pair of red heels, and a writer taking down the story of an old man and his past as a choreographer for a French ballet dancer.

STORY:  Red Blinds the Foolish is a breath of fresh air for anyone familiar with yaoi as a whole. It looks like no other yaoi on the market, it reads like no other yaoi on the market, and I am so very thankful that something like this exists.

Noteably, this isn't a single, linear story but an anthology of mostly unconnected ones.  Secondly, they all feature an usual setting for manga - Europe (Spain, specifically).  Admittedly, est em utilizes that setting rather shallowly.  Sure, she incorporates elements like bullfighting and soccer, but she also seems to ignore the fact that Spain is a predominately Catholic culture, and as such there might be more conflict and concern for a gay man in Spanish culture, particularly one who is a prominent media figure like Rafita.

The volume is dominated by the title story, which is plot-wise the most complex as well as the artiest and most philosophical of the lot.  Rafita starts as a cocky and somewhat shallow man, the kind who can stare down death even as it stampedes towards him or call his lover in the middle of screwing another man.  By story's end, he has lost some of his fearlessness but has traded for some genuine concern and affection for Mauro.  Mauro admittedly doesn't have quite as much of a character arc, although a bit of his backstory is filled in through one of the later chapters.  He is sedate and calm, willing to wait things out and let Rafita figure things out on his own.

est em also doesn't linger too much on how anybody on this volume gets together.  It simply just sort of happens somewhere offscreen (offpage?).  I guess this does allow her to get past any of the characters' possible anxieties about whether the other party is gay, much less if they are into them, and it's an understandable shortcut when she doesn't have a lot of pages to spare.  Still, it leaves these relationships feeling a bit uncomplete as even during sex the stories feel a bit emotionally cold.  Mind you, part of that comes from the fact that we're mostly not seeing the complete arc of these relationships, but mere vignettes of their lives.

OK, so while her works are not perfect, there are a lot of good and cliche-defying things to say about Red Blinds the Foolish.  First of all, for all of you out there sick to death of the whole seme/uke cliches?  This is a manga for you.  Here, none of the men are forced to fit any particular roles in the relationship (or in bed) beyond "significant other," "friend," or "associate."  Secondly, these are all working adults - no high school kids, no college students, just god-to-honest grown up MEN.  Third, she also doesn't force the sex into the story, as many a BL mangaka do to keep up audience interest.  While she's not afraid of including sensuality in her work, she's not in it for the porn but instead for the characters and the relationships between them.  It's more of a mature work in the sense of the writing and the sedate, intelligent tone versus being 'mature' in the 18+ sort of way.

While Red Blinds the Foolish is far from perfect, it's an interesting and mature collection of stories and it's a welcome spot of relief in the sea of hysterical ukes, aloof semes, and flowery sex scenes.

ART:  est em also distinguishs herself from the crowd through her lovely, realistic artwork.  Here her men look like actual, individual European men, instead of the highly stylized and feminized character designs one usually sees in yaoi.  They have actual musculature!  And butts!  And even body hair!  When was the last time you saw yaoi that acknowledge that men might have hair in places other than their heads?

There is a certain sketch-like quality to est em's art, particularly in the faces in closer shots or the sometimes hastily drawn details of Rafita's costume.  Her backgrounds are often blank, although here this is not a detriment simply because est em frames every panel so beautifully and elegantly that you hardly mind - to add more to the panel would spoil the effect.  There are a wide variety of simple, confident angles in the panels, along with some equally well-done intercutting of panels during moments of action (in every sense of the phrase *eyebrow waggle*).  Overall there's a sense of confidence and simple beauty in the art which not enhances the tone of the story and goes a long way towards not only distinguishing est em from other BL mangaka, but from manga artists as a whole.

PRESENTATION:  There are a couple of pages of author's notes about est em doing research for this volume, packed to the brim with notes and sketches.  I did like the little touch of her drawing herself and her friend "C" as C-3PO and R2D2.

RATING:
The look and subtlety of Red Blinds the Foolish  more than make up for any faults it might have, and anyone who has ever been wary or weary of yaoi should give this and the rest of est em's catalogue a look.

This was published in the USA by Deux Press, and is currently out of print.

You can purchase manga like this and much more through RightStuf.com!

Well, it was certainly fun for once to focus on the good stuff for once.  Next month promises to stuffed with even more reviews, as well as a very special giveaway.  Come back this weekend to find out the details!