Holiday Review: MONSTER AND THE BEAST

BL continued to expand across all the major publishers this year (as well as a number of digital ones), and I guess it was inevitable that we would find the intersection between BL and the monster-based romances of late.

MONSTER AND THE BEAST (Bakemono to Kedamono), by Renji.  First published in 2017 and first published in North America in 2019.

PLOT:

Deep in the woods, a man once met a monster.  Cavo was a demon with a pure heart, who only longed for a little kindness.  Liam was a middle-aged cad who wasn't particular about who his partners may be, so long as he can enjoy his freedom.  The two become travelling companions, and as Cavo spends more time with Liam he discovers feelings he never thought he could feel for another.

STORY:

Monster and the Beast doesn't waste any time setting up the twist in its premise.  Hell it states as much within its first chapter.  Cavo may be the physically beastly of the two. but the true beast is Liam with his cavalier attitude towards the feelings of others.  The book also tries to conflate this with his voracious and indiscriminate attitude towards sex as well, but the notion that pansexuality equals monstrousness is a notion that didn't sit well with me.

The plot (such as it is) is a fairly nondescript adventure, so much of the story leans upon Cavo's emotional arc and the mystery behind Liam to carry it forward.  Cavo's emotional journey is the focus of the first two-thirds, as he goes from uncertain and flustered by Liam's attentions to certain, committed, and even jealous.  Once they get to town, the focus shifts to Liam as Renji carefully parcels out hints that Renji is probably in bigger trouble than just having a lot of one-night stands.

If it seems like I'm being vague, that's because the story's biggest flaw is how vague it it.  I'm not expecting Deep Lore worthy of a brick-sized fantasy novel, but I do feel that Renji is a bit too conservative with how much information she doles out.  She seems to be letting the sheer novelty of the main pairing carry the story for most of its length, but she either needed to really play up Cavo's emotional turmoil, the mystery of Liam, or the world around them to make its emotional highs feel significant.

ART:

I'd be shocked if Renji isn't a Natsume Ono fan.  The humans in this story take a lot after Ono's signature style, with their large buggy eyes and long froggy mouths.  It would also explain why Renji chose to make half of her main couple a handsome middle-aged man in a crisp, modern-looking suit.  Meanwhile, Cavo feels like wasted potential.  Cavo is meant to be a monster, but most of his non-human qualities are minimized or hidden behind the waterfall of hair covering his head.  Mostly he just comes off as a big, burly giant.  I guess that will make things less awkward if Renji ever dares to get explicit at some later point, but I wish she had been more daring.

RATING:


Monster and the Beast has a novel premise for BL, but it's too distant and vague about itself to turn that novelty into something truly compelling.

This series is published by Yen Press.  This series is ongoing in Japan with 2 volumes available.  1 volume has been released and is currently in print.

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