Holiday Review: TRAP IN A SKIRT

It was a good year for BL manga, though.  Mostly it was the fact that more publishers began licensing it, including Kodansha.  Sadly, their print releases don't start until next year, so I have to settle for an intriguing digital-only series.

TRAP IN A SKIRT (Skirt ni Wana), by Puruchome.  First published in 2016 and first published in North America in 2018.

PLOT:

Aoi just wants to feel sexual pleasure the same way a woman does.  That's why he's taken to secretly dressing in a girl's uniform while masturbating, but it's not quite enough to get him there.  Then he's confronted by his classmate Takane, who harasses him about being gay only to then start making out with him.  It seems Takane's wanting to experiment with his sexuality, and Aoi sees in him the perfect toy for his needs.

STORY:

Before I go any further, let me clarify this for anyone wondering: no, the "trap" in the title is not referring to the slur against trans people.  Aoi might like to cross-dress, but the manga makes clear that it is a fetish for him (although you could make an argument for a certain degree of gender fluidity, considering his obsession).  The trap here is a metaphorical and emotional one, not a term popularized by dumbasses on bad forums.

With that fear out of the way, I was able to really enjoy Trap In a Skirt.  It's emotionally messy in a really compelling way.  Most of that mess is coming from Takane, who is just a whirlwind of mixed signals and hormones, punctuated with angry blushing and crying jags.  This may sound like standard uke histrionics in text, but while reading it you'll pick up an undercurrent of anger and confusion that lend these mood shifts some real, emotional power.

As for Aoi, I do appreciate that Puruchome portrays his kink positively.  The origins of the kink are more than a bit sketchy (involving a combination of sisters that like to play dress-up and a random neighbor that commits what I can only call sexual abuse by way of voyeurism), but it's not portrayed as an inherently deviant or emasculating.  He's definitely the cannier of the two, and after a while he seems to get off just as much on the drama around him as he does from what he does with Takane in the bedroom.  Watching him work out his own thoughts and emotions with Takane was alluring and compelling in its own way, arguably more so than anything explicit they did, and it elevates what is otherwise a fairly basic premise into a fascinating one.

ART:

I would not be surprised to learn that Natsume Ono and/or Haruko Kumota was an influence on Puruchome, as the lean, slinky builds, heavy-lidded eyes, and thick mouths on the characters here remind me of both.  Beyond that, their art here is very minimal.  They also shy away from actually showing smut, usually fading to black with maybe a white spatter as accent.  The most graphic they get is showing Aoi anally fingering himself, and even that is somewhat vague (although they do get points for having him use protection while doing so).

RATING:

Don't let the title scare you away from this manga.  Trap In a Skirt is proof that sometimes the clash of messy emotions and sexual exploration can be just as thrilIling as straight-up smut, if not more so.  I'm glad Kodansha took a chance on this one.

This book is published by Kodansha Comics.  It is currently available through most digital comic outlets.

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